US to go it alone on Iran sanctions

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http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...4569&printer=1

US to go it alone on Iran sanction

Sunday August 27th 2006


PHILIP SHERWELL

in NEW YORK


THE British prime minister Tony Blair faces the embarrassing prospect of once again being asked to back America, not the United Nations, as Washington prepares to forge a diplomatic "coalition of the willing" to pursue economic sanctions against Iran.

The strategy has been devised by John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, amid signs that the world body may fail to impose its own threatened penalties when Thursday's Security Council deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment expires.

The confrontation deepened yesterday as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new heavy water plant at Arak, south-west of Teheran, a few days after Iran pledged it would unveil a "momentous" breakthrough in its nuclear programme. Heavy water can be used to create a plutonium by-product for use in atomic warheads.

Iran publicly insists that its nuclear programme, which it operated in secret for 18 years, is for peaceful purposes, but western intelligence and governments are convinced that it is clandestinely pursuing an atomic bomb.

Mr Bolton is negotiating with US allies such as Britain and Japan to form their own coalition to freeze Iranian assets abroad and restrict trade if Teheran presses ahead with its nuclear programme unpunished by the UN.

Russia, which holds a veto at the Security Council, appeared to backtrack last week on earlier promises to support preliminary sanctions against Iran if, as expected, it flouts the August 31 deadline.

Washington intends to introduce a Security Council resolution soon after the Thursday ultimatum, proposing penalties which include a travel ban and assets freeze on prominent Iranian leaders.

Although Mr Bolton said he remains hopeful that Moscow and Beijing will back the move, he confirmed that Washington was also working on a fall-back diplomatic initiative outside the UN.

America will encourage other nations to impose the sort of trade sanctions that Washington has pursued against Iran since the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis.

"You don't need security council authority to impose sanctions, just as we have," he told the Los Angeles Times. The US wants European and Japanese banks to play a key role in clamping down on business with Iran.

Meanwhile, Israel has appointed a top general to oversee a war against Iran, prompting speculation that it is preparing for possible military action against Teheran's nuclear programme, writes Harry de Quetteville in Jerusalem.

Major General Elyezer Shkedy, Israel's air force chief, will be overall commander for the "Iran front", according to military sources.

Despite Iran's offer last week to engage in "serious talks" on its nuclear programme, Israel fears that the offer is simply to buy time for Teheran to secure all the technology it needs to build the bomb.

"Israel is becoming extremely concerned now with what they see as Iran's delaying tactics," said the Israeli Iran expert Meir Javedanfar. "They [the planners] think negotiations are going nowhere and Iran is becoming a major danger for Israel. Now they are getting ready for living with a nuclear Iran or letting the military take care of it."

The prospect of Israel "living with" a nuclear Iran appears remote. Last week Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told reporters that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel".