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IRAN: Will sanctions stop a bomb or start a war?

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As expected, the United Nations Security Council voted Monday to impose a third round of sanctions on Iran. The Iranian government refuses international demands to halt its enrichment of uranium ore, a process that can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for an atomic bomb.

The big question now is, what do these sanctions mean? What effect will they have?

Times U.N. bureau chief Maggie Farley reported in Tuesday’s paper that the backers of this round of sanctions adhered to a carrot-and-stick approach:

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The sponsors of the resolution, the five permanent council members plus Germany, said they were trying to provide Iran with a choice between isolation and engagement, and that the new sanctions were intended to demonstrate that the council was serious. ‘Nobody said the sanctions resolution will bring us to the desired result,’ said German Ambassador Thomas Matussek. ‘The result can only be brought about by negotiations, but we must show we are credible.’

Many are skeptical this approach will work.

Iran was long isolated from the rest of the world, and its leaders don’t seem to mind their international pariah status. But a Times opinion piece by Charles Kupchan and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations argues that even that isolation is crumbling:

While Washington continues to press for a stark policy of political isolation and military containment, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are overtly pursuing a new strategy of engagement. Even the Iraqi government, despite its ostensible alignment with the Bush administration, has opened its doors...

Hawks in the U.S. have long argued that the sanctions being pursued by the international community against Tehran are just too meek to convince Iran to halt its nuclear program. But analyst Kaveh Afrasiabi, writing at the Asia Times website, sees in a sanctions provision allowing searches of Iranian cargo vessels as a potential recipe for a confrontation on the seas, ‘given Tehran’s stated promise to resist ‘unlawful’ pressures and demands:’

This may well mean resisting a key aspect of the UN resolution that calls for the interdiction of ships and airplanes carrying suspected nuclear cargo to and from Iran. With US and French ships poised to carry out this duty in and around the Persian Gulf, the stage has now been set for the next chapter in the nuclear standoff, that is, physical confrontation.

Iranian officials strongly condemned the latest round of sanctions, but did not specify what actions they would take in response.

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Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad

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