Sanctions and Centrifuges

"As long as Asian countries keep buying Iranian oil, then the ruling clerics have a buffer.  The real weak link could be if people take to the streets to demand some action to ease their economic pain."  Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Syracuse University

There are United Nations and U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran, meant to disrupt the country's economy and inflict damage on its social fabric, its politics, and above all, its indomitable insistence that it has the inalienable right as a nation to pursue its interests in building nuclear installations.  Its covert activities geared to enriching uranium for the purpose of nuclearized weaponry to aid it in its campaign to be seen as a Middle East strongman, makes it hugely unpopular with the West and with other Middle East regimes.

The Islamic Republic of Iran's governing Ayatollahs, fixated rabidly on their fundamentalist version of Islam, and averse to the presence of a non-Muslim state in the Middle East, and threatening the sovereignty and authority of other Muslim, Arab states, does not present as a governing body one can reason with.  This is a rigid theocracy which oppresses its own people and seeks to spread its influence in as wide an arc as possible, through force if necessary.

It is also a regime whose constantly-stated verbal threats against a neighbouring state is to be taken seriously.  The vehemence of absolute rejection with which it approaches the legitimacy of the presence of the State of Israel cannot be taken lightly; threats of annihilation are regular fare from the Republic of Iran, even when addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations. 

Its hatred of Israel and its viral deprecation of Jews as 'cancers' deserving of being incised from the world body, is well enough known, yet little enough commented on, let alone denounced.  Its similar virtiole directed against the United States as the "big Satan", marks the Republic of Iran as a delusionally demented body politic.  Its abusive human rights record toward its minorities, other religions, political dissenters, is abysmal.

Yet it has the sly effrontery to portray itself as a champion of human rights, dedicated to the eradication of weapons of mass destruction, seeking peace and goodwill among its fellow men.  Suspicion of its nuclear program, ranging from the U.S. and Israeli administrations to the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency has led to a concerted effort to force it to stand down from its nuclear ambitions.

The Islamic Republic is represented as OPEC's third-largest exporter of oil.  It finds a ready market in the emerging economies of Asia, China and India.  Its business with the West has been sharply curtailed.  Its banking has been impacted deleteriously.  It can no longer import from its usual European sources parts that it relies upon for its industrial purposes, including the manufacture of vehicles.

The sanctions that have been applied are not nearly as efficacious as they could be, thanks to the assistance given Iran by China, Venezuela and others, including some European agencies who surreptitiously continue to do business with Iran.  Although the regime itself is faltering financially it has not yet reached the point of despair.  But its business and merchant class are beginning to.

Blackballed from main international banking networks, Iranian merchants and manufacturers are unable to buy goods abroad from traditional European sources.  The credit lines that China and other Asian countries have extended to Iran have enabled it to buy their goods alone, which are flooding the Iranian market.  The U.S. is loathe to apply pressure on their own critical trade partners in Asia.

The result is that a popular wide-spread backlash has not yet manifested itself within Iran with the merchant class that has always supported the regime, turning against it.  And meanwhile, intelligence has informed that Iran has installed hundreds of additional enrichment centrifuges in the secret mountainside Fordow nuclear facility.

And it has continued to clean up the military Parchin site to remove any evidence of forbidden nuclear activity.  The building at Parchin where aerial satellite surveillance had revealed the presence of a steel chamber for explosive experiments has been concealed by a canopy while technicians are busy sanitizing the facility.

Making it doubtful, according to one Western envoy, that inspectors from the IAEA would uncover much in the way of evidence that, as suspected, Iranian nuclear scientists had conducted tests with a military purpose.