IT WOULD BE ILLOGICAL TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS ON IRAN: ANALYST

Mehr News Agency, Iran
Oct 3 2006

TEHRAN, Oct. 3 (MNA) — Political analyst Barin Kayaoglu, a Turkish
national attending the University of Virginia, says it would be naive
for the international community to expect to impose sanctions on Iran
without a response from Tehran that would cause oil and natural gas
prices to go up.

In view of global energy prices, there is no sensible reason for
pushing for sanctions against Tehran, he told the Mehr News Agency
in an interview on September 30.

Following is the text of the interview.

Q: What could cause the U.S. efforts to fail?

A: Well, given the fact that there are still no UN-endorsed sanctions,
other countries won’t follow the example of the U.S. With the economic
boom of the 1990s cooling in the past couple of years, no country
can really afford to shut out any market, especially one that is as
promising as the Iranian market.

Q: Do you think that the U.S. is in a position to move on sanctions,
and do you think that it will be effective?

A: Well, I am not sure what effect it is going to have for the U.S.

to single-handedly implement more sanctions on Iran. As far as
American companies’ prospects of doing business with Iran, it will
obviously not be possible for them to enter the Iranian market given
the present state of things.

As for extending these sanctions to shutting out the American
market to international companies doing business with Iran, that’s
a possibility. On the other hand, modern business practices have
perfect ease in circumventing such rules. Hypothetically, if a U.S.

company wanted to sell something to an Iranian company, it could do
that through third parties, say, through a company in Turkey, Armenia,
or more sensibly, Dubai.

Q: How far will Russia and China go in backing Iran, and do you think
that the sanctions will produce regional backlashes?

A: I think the Iranians should rely on Russia and China only so much.

They will stand alongside Iran, because both countries are unhappy
with the U.S. presence in the Middle East. The Chinese, meanwhile,
because of their own unique and historical reasons, feel evermore
threatened by the U.S. military presence in East Asia. And recently
they are voicing these concerns in rather undiplomatic language.

The U.S. military, as you may recall, has recently had to abandon its
bases in Uzbekistan because of the Bush administration’s criticism
of that country’s domestic politics. This will certainly help the
Russian Federation increase its leverage in Central Asia. In this
regard, they will probably support Iran to the extent that it serves
Russian interests.

But Iranians should keep in mind that Russia and China will support
Iran in line with their own interests, NOT those of Iran.

As for regional backlashes, for the reasons I’ve stated (in response)
to your first question, I do not believe that other countries will
follow suit without a UN Security Council Resolution nor could the
U.S. implement similar sanctions against another Middle Eastern
country.

Q: Do you foresee major differences between the U.S. and the EU on
one hand and China and Russia on the other in regard to sanctions?

A: The U.S.-EU bit of that question will be determined by how the
Europeans want to engage Iran. They are paranoid about the perceived
"Islamic threat" emanating from the Middle East. We Turks are probably
witnessing this in our dealings with them more than any other Muslim
country.

So, the answer is, if they look at the question as "Muslims with
bombs" instead of a dilemma that can be solved by diplomacy, they
will probably join the U.S. That is still a moot point.

If Iran, on the other hand, fails to make a convincing case that its
nuclear program is strictly peaceful and remind (the human memory is
truly elusive, don’t you think?) others that it is still a party to
the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), then there is always the risk
that Russia and China might not protest possible sanctions against
Iran. What Iran needs to do at this stage is to juxtapose its adherence
to the NPT regime with Israel’s, Pakistan’s, and India’s possession
of nuclear weapons.

Of course, all of these points may or may not be valid when we think of
Iran’s importance for global energy. Can the international community
expect to impose sanctions on Iran without a response from Iran that
would cause oil and natural gas prices to go up? It would be naive
to think so. With global energy prices at such exorbitant rates,
I do not believe that there is a sensible reason for pushing this
sanction business too far.

On the human side, sanctions do not work against governments, they
work against the people. Following the First Persian Gulf War, UN
sanctions did not work against Saddam Hussein’s regime, they worked
against the Iraqi people. Saddam enjoyed "la dolce vita" until the
Americans showed up at his doorstep in April 2003.

Q: As you know, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, is
behind the new sanctions bill. Given her record, how do you view the
Zionist lobby’s influence on the bill, given the fact that its approval
was applauded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)?

A: The reason why Israel and pro-Israel Americans are concerned with
Iran’s nuclear program is that they draw a weird connection between
the Holocaust and what might happen if Israel ever lost a war. David
Ben-Gurion once said, "Israel can never gain legitimacy in the eyes
of its Arab neighbors even if it won a hundred wars. But it cannot
lose a single war; if it does, everything is over." That mindset is
precisely why they embarked on their nuclear program and now possess
nuclear weapons. You may know that they actually deployed their
nuclear arsenal during the October 1973 war, in case the front broke.

Just as Western countries perceive Islam as a threat, whether that
perception is true or not (I believe it isn’t true), Israel, when
looking around the region, sees countries that are bent on repeating
the Holocaust, whether that is true or not. I believe that that
perception is also false.

On the other hand, to be perfectly honest with you, I do not understand
why President Ahmadinejad is mocking this central concern of Israelis
and world Jewry. I understand that Iranians question the fundamental
relationship between the Holocaust and the Israeli mindset, but
the way that they are doing it is unwise. I think you are also doing
research on this topic too, but denying the existence of the Holocaust
is neither helping Iran’s security nor its prosperity. I think what
the Iranian government should be saying is something along these
lines: "We do not deny that Jews suffered a tragedy at the hands
of the West. It is not our intention to make them suffer. But how
justified is it for the Palestinians to suffer in similar conditions
at the hands of Israelis?" I know that your government is saying a
good deal of this. But by mocking the Holocaust, it is not serving
Iranian interests.

To make my long answer short, it is only sensible for AIPAC to applaud
yesterday’s (September 29) vote, given their perception of Israel,
Islam, and Iran.

Barin Kayaoglu is a Ph.D. student at the Corcoran Department of
History of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress