President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is doubtless relaxed about international plans for a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. He has already endured three rounds of sanctions, and has no reason to think that the next round will work out very differently. New sanctions will hit the lives of normal people harder than anyone else, and allow Ahmadinejad to depict the US as the villain of the piece.
Ahmadinejad can point to the fact that Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and also signed (but not ratified) its Additional Protocol. He will emphasise that Iran has stuck to the letter of the law. He can also make much of the fact that the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency has not found any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme. And he can point to the hypocrisy that lets the US agree that Israel, Pakistan and India can all acquire nuclear weapons outside the NPT, but yet put such fierce pressure on Iran — which has signed the NPT — and does not have nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad's calm rebuttal will not play well with US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who on Tuesday announced that they wanted to implement tough nuclear sanctions from the UN on Iran this spring. They do not trust Iran's government and have given up on Obama's initial plan to engage the Iranians on the issue.
The Obama administration pursued talks with the Iranians till they saw that the latter would not agree to discuss its nuclear programme as a separate issue, but wanted talks to cover all issues at the same time. The Americans made a serious mistake though because sanctions will surely fail, and Obama will be left with no ability to change policy in Iran. He will have to return to engagement in the end.
