Sanctions-bidon et bombe à retardement

Sanctions-bidon et bombe à retardement

Jim Lobe fait dans Antiwar.com, à la date du 9 juin 2010, une analyse des sanctions contre l’Iran qui viennent d’être votées par le Conseil de Sécurité. Tonalité générale, sinon unanime : ces sanctions n’auront aucune efficacité.

«While top U.S. officials touted the U.N. Security Council’s approval Wednesday of a new sanctions resolution against Iran as a major diplomatic breakthrough, most nuclear and Iran specialists say it is unlikely to be effective and could prove counterproductive.

»Even if, as expected, they are followed up by additional unilateral sanctions on the part of both the United States and the members of the European Union (EU), the aim of persuading Iran to curb its nuclear program is unlikely to be achieved, according to these experts.

»“It’s almost impossible to find anyone here in Washington who believes sanctions will make any difference,” noted Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked on Iran issues under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at a forum on Iran at the Wilson International Center for Scholars Monday. “The Iranian leadership has demonstrated that under pressure they are most averse to compromise,” she added, noting that the Islamic Republic has faced much more formidable diplomatic and economic pressures in its 31-year history, particularly during the Iran-Iraq War and when the price of oil fell to record lows.

»Other analysts said the new sanctions, particularly if combined with additional U.S. and EU measures directed at Iran’s financial and energy sectors, are likely to strengthen hard-liners in Tehran and rally nationalist sentiment behind them. [….]

»“As a result, the resolution is not strong enough to change Iran’s strategic calculation any more than the three resolutions that preceded it,” according to an article posted by Christopher Wall, an international lawyer who served as assistant secretary of commerce for export administration under Bush, on foreignpolicy.com. “The U.N. sanctions against Iran have been watered down to almost nothing,” he added.

»That assessment was echoed by Flynt and Hillary Leverett, Iran specialists under both Clinton and Bush, who have long argued for a “grand bargain” with Iran on a host of issues and criticized Obama for not breaking decisively with Bush’s policy. They called the new resolution “remarkably weak.”»

…L’effet net pourrait même être complètement contre-productif, observe Jim Lobe. L’administration Obama attend en effet que ces sanctions de l’ONU soient effectivement suivies de sanctions unilatérales, perspective qui a été fortement dénoncée par certains de ceux qui ont voté les sanctions. A la fin mai, le ministre des affaires étrangères russe Lavrov est personnellement intervenu auprès d’Hillary Clinton pour l’avertir que la Russie s’opposerait catégoriquement à des sanctions hors du cadre du vote de l’ONU, notamment celles que le Congrès US s’apprête à décider. La suite de l’épisode onusien devrait préparer des antagonismes extrêmement sérieux au sein de la sacro-sainte “communauté internationale” (les “5+1” et le troupeau qui suit).

«“The (Barack) Obama administration has indicated that it anticipates these provisions will provide a legal basis for other states — like members of the European Union and Japan — to enact tougher national sanctions of their own,” the Leveretts wrote in a post on their website, raceforiran.com. “But the United States is not going to get anything approaching universal compliance with these ‘optional’ sanctions,” they added. “The net effect will be to accelerate the reallocation of business opportunities in the Islamic Republic from Western states to China and other non- Western powers.”

»Moreover, according to Maloney, additional unilateral sanctions, notably those favored by Congress to penalize companies that export refined oil products, such as gasoline, to Iran, “will make it more difficult to get follow-up actions by the international community.”»

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