The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009, a potentially counterproductive Iran sanctions bill working its way through Congress, has been delayed. Versions of the law had been passed by both houses and were being reconciled in conference committee. A staffer I spoke to a few weeks ago suggested that the bill would be signed by Memorial Day.
But no longer. My friend Brian Wingfield at Forbes reported this week that bill sponsors Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) have delayed their bill for at least a month.
A delay, and potential scuttling of the law, may not be the worst thing in the world. Read Pirooz Hamvatan’s and Ali K‘s piece on P-Fix a few weeks ago, where they point out the current bill’s flaws:
The new bill aims to cripple Iran’s economy in response to Iran’s refusal to halt its nuclear program. But the sanctions being proposed are not the right answer. Such a sweeping measure would end up only hurting ordinary Iranians, especially the middle class that the U.S. must shore up to improve Iran’s chances for reform.
The delay is thanks to the UN Security Council, which announced it had reached a multilateral sanctions deal with China and Russia. Dodd and Berman say they preferred the multilateral approach all along, and seem content to let that process play out. Both China and Russia have been reluctant partners, so the deal is a potentially big diplomatic win for the Obama administration.
However, it raises the question — why would these holdouts acquiesce to the UN sanctions package now? Did they suddenly see the light? With all the exemptions and loopholes for Chinese companies, it’s doubtful in at least Beijing’s case. Check out this TIME article for a good explanation:
Beijing extracted a significant price for its support. Not only has Beijing watered down the sanctions to be adopted by the Security Council in order to ensure they don’t restrain China from expanding its already massive economic ties with Iran; Chinese analysts also claim that, in the course of a protracted series of negotiations with Washington, their government also won undertakings from Washington to exempt Chinese companies from any U.S. unilateral sanctions that punish third-country business partners with the Islamic Republic.
The Russians must have not gotten such a great deal. Iranian President Ahmadinejad singled out Moscow as a “historic enemy” for supporting UN sanctions, but seems to have forgotten to mention Beijing.
In the end, we’re left with a potentially counterproductive bill out of Congress, or an imperfect UN package. I’ll take the UN version any day of the week — even though Chinese companies get exemptions, it’s better to forge a strong international coalition against Iran’s nuclear program.
And members of Congress who supported that bill can still campaign on their vote, whether or not it ever gets to the president.
Photo credit: Daniella Zalcman/ CC BY-NC 2.0
