The way to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium, the Bush administration says, is to threaten it with economic sanctions.
But the U.S. drive to marshal international support for sanctions faces growing opposition from key global powers. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is Russia -- a key member of the U.N. Security Council and the main supplier of Tehran's nuclear technology.
"The key to any diplomatic solution ... is that you have to get the Security Council to be obviously willing to impose penalties on Iran, and you can't do that without the Russians, because they have veto power and they are the ones that supply Iran's nuclear program," said George Perkovich, an expert on Iran and nuclear proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "It's the main obstacle."
The United States wants the Security Council to begin talks this week on a draft resolution that sets out sanctions against Iran for its nuclear activities, and is expecting an agreement on sanctions shortly, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Friday.
But the world's major powers failed to agree on what to do about Tehran's defiance when they met in Berlin last week to work out a strategy on Iran. Russia and China, both of which can veto any proposed action by the Security Council, have expressed reluctance to impose sanctions on Iran.
The Bush administration and its allies could start by pushing for limited sanctions, which would include imposing travel and financial restrictions on Iranian officials. More severe sanctions could involve freezing Iranian government accounts abroad, and banning the trade of goods that could be used for its nuclear program. The United States could also call for ending any cooperation with Iran's oil and gas industry, which would hike global oil prices, but it is unlikely that European countries and China would agree to that.
The United States contends that Iran's intention is to acquire nuclear weapons, and that Russia has been secretly providing a boost to Iran's nuclear-arms program.
"Even though the ostensible purpose of Russian assistance to Iran's nuclear infrastructure is for civilian applications, we assess that such support enhances Tehran's ability to support a nuclear weapons development effort," CIA analysts wrote in an unclassified report to Congress in 2002.
Russia has long resisted imposing any tough measures against its Persian Gulf economic partner, even though in July it joined six major powers to discuss a united response that could involve sanctions if Iran failed to stop the enrichment program by Aug. 31.
After the deadline passed and Iran said it would not give up its nuclear program, Russia signaled that it still thought imposing sanctions would be excessive.
"Measures of economic pressure must be commensurate with the presence of a real threat to peace and international security," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week amid the last-ditch international effort to persuade Tehran to rethink its nuclear program. Russia says it accepts Iran's assurances that its nuclear program is only for energy production.
Russia's reluctance to support sanctions is based on a number of factors, ranging from the Kremlin's belief that Iran does not pose a significant security threat, to its commercial interests there, to post-Soviet Russia's desire to demonstrate to the Western community -- particularly its Cold War arch-enemy, the United States -- that it has a sovereign foreign policy that will not be dictated by the West, say experts on Russia, Iran and nuclear proliferation.
"Russia says: 'Do not expect us to follow your line; we'll be part of the transatlantic community when it suits us.' It's the new Russia foreign policy," said Sarah Mendelson, an expert on Russia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "They are increasingly unreliable."
Iran has already announced it has successfully mastered preliminary steps in enrichment technology, a crucial step in acquiring fuel for a nuclear weapon. American officials estimate that Iran could build such a weapon by the end of this decade or early in the next decade. In a report last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, inspectors said they had found traces of highly enriched uranium in Iran.
Russia is building Iran's first nuclear power plant -- a $1 billion, 1,000-megawatt facility in Bushehr, 250 miles southwest of Tehran, which is scheduled to begin operating next year. The Kremlin defends Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear program and denies helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons. To ensure that their nuclear cooperation abides by international laws, Russia says it will require all spent fuel from the Bushehr reactor to be returned to Russia for reprocessing, which ostensibly would prevent Iran from enriching fuel for military purposes.
President Bush says Iran supports terrorism and would become an even greater international security threat if armed with nuclear weapons.
But to Russia, Iran is a regional power to be reckoned with and an important trade partner. Trade between Iran and Russia has grown steadily over recent years, rising to $2.02 billion in 2005 from $661 million in 2000, Interfax news agency reported last month. Russian exports to Iran last year -- mostly conventional weapons, military equipment and cars -- reached $1.9 billion, Interfax reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the West often criticizes for authoritarian crackdowns on human rights in his own country, does not see Iran as a rogue nation, Mendelson said.
"On some level, the Russians might think that Tehran is a decent bet," she said. "If you start from the premise that (Russia is) in no way, shape or form driven by a host of democratic human rights principles, that means that they are completely unreliable with other governments that also don't embrace it." Russian leaders fear sanctions would open the door to military action against Iran down the road, further destabilizing the region and depriving Moscow of its client.
"They don't like the idea of sacrificing economic interests that are so critical for them," said Michael O'Hanlon, an expert on Iran at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy of the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Russia's stake in Iran is not limited to commercial interests, noted Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.
"Russia believes Iran will be the most important and influential country in the gulf region, (and) it wants good relations with such a country," Einhorn said. If Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, he said, "surely Russia would prefer to be a friend of a nuclear-armed Iran."
The Carnegie Endowment's Perkovich pointed to another aspect influencing Russia's reluctance to support the U.S. push to stop Iran's nuclear program: Moscow enjoys America's discomfort.
"They look at the United States, they say, 'They're arrogant, we call them a hegemonic power, and the one real problem to them is nuclear proliferation. And if we solve nuclear proliferation for them, they will enjoy their hegemony over the entire world,' " Perkovich said.
Instead, blocking Washington's effort on Iran is "a great way for the Russians to tweak the Bush administration at a time when they are much weaker than during the Cold War," said Roby Barrett, an expert on Iran and nuclear proliferation at the Middle East Institute.
It is a factor Tehran uses to its advantage, Perkovich said. "The Iranians are looking at the Russians and saying: 'As long as they're not willing to push hard, the Security Council will not punish us, and we will continue to get the stuff we need.' "
Russia's Ties To Iran A Roadblock To U.S.
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