Iran continues to play games with the rest of the world with regard to its nuclear program. This weekend, we’ve had the Foreign Minister claiming that a nuclear deal was close. And Ahmadinejad threatening the exact opposite: a further augmentation of its highly enriched uranium for use in a nuclear reactor to produce medical isotopes. (The deal that Iran negotiated, then rejected, would have had Iran’s enriched uranium traded for uranium appropriate for medical uses produced elsewhere–in Russia or France or Turkey.)
This transparently ridiculous behavior has managed to tick off almost every one Iran’s natural allies–except, perhaps, China, which still remains reluctant to impose sanctions. But China also has, traditionally, been reluctant to stand alone in the international arena…and so a Chinese abstention is quite possible when a new round of sanctions is placed before the UN Security Council. In any case, it is time for this game to stop. Time for sanctions against Revolutionary Guard-related businesses to be imposed.