Vol. 71/No. 10      March 12, 2007

The IAEA report said Tehran has defied the resolution the United Nations Security Council passed December 23, and has speeded up its nuclear program, planning to complete a large-scale uranium enrichment facility by May.

Washington immediately assembled a closed-door meeting of officials from four imperialist countries—the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany—plus Russia and China to discuss imposing new sanctions on Iran. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the six would hold further phone talks March 1, "at which time they hope to be able to hammer out the elements of a UN sanctions resolution." The resolution the UN Security Council passed in December banned financial transactions and the export of materials and technology that Tehran could use to develop nuclear power.

Washington used the December resolution to tighten its squeeze on the country. In January, U.S. president George Bush ordered a second aircraft carrier group into the Arab-Persian Gulf in striking distance of Iran. Washington has also pressed banks around the world to cut off lending and export credits to Iran, hoping to further damage its oil and other infrastructure.

The nuclear power plant Moscow is helping to build in Bushehr was excluded from the December sanctions. Now, however, Moscow's decision will delay possibly by a year any delivery of nuclear fuel to the plant. The two governments had signed a memorandum of understanding in 1992 and a contract in 1995. The plant was scheduled to be inaugurated in October and connected to the Iranian electric power grid in November.

The problem arose last month when the Iranian bank that settles accounts requested to pay in euros rather than U.S. dollars. The bank was following the orders of the Iranian government, which decided in mid-December to replace the U.S. dollar with euros in all foreign transactions to ease the impact of U.S.-led sanctions against the country. Moscow has refused payments in euros, insisting that such a change in terms must be incorporated as an amendment to the Bushehr contract. It appears that Moscow, faced with rising energy and commodity prices, no longer considers Bushehr a money-making project.

In pushing for a second UN Security Council resolution against Iran the White House is building on the impact of the first. "We did not fully anticipate the strong impact that it would have," U.S. under secretary of state Nicholas Burns said February 22. "It has divided the government in Tehran and frankly knocked them off stride."
 
 
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