Is Obama Making Headway on Iran?

The IAEA has agreed to take a harsher line on Iran:

The United Nations nuclear watchdog demanded Friday that Iran immediately freeze operations at a once secret uranium enrichment plant, a sharp rebuke that bore added weight because it was endorsed by Russia and China...

...Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said China’s support on Iran and its decision to set a climate change goal on Thursday showed that Mr. Obama’s trip to Beijing was producing results despite criticism of the visit. “This is the product of engagement,” Mr. Emanuel said, adding that it was “a direct result” of the trip.

I appreciate the need for the administration to show some results for the trip to Asia - which has been roundly, and in my view somewhat unfairly, condemned as a failure - but I think there's a real danger in holding up the UN's move as any real "progress." The point of engaging China on Iran is to convince the Chinese to sign onto more coercive sanctions against Iran which, in turn, will lead to the ultimate goal of dissuading Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The end goal - as stated by the president himself - is not to win international condemnation of Iran (although it may be a useful first step) but to ensure they do not develop a nuclear weapon.

As long as the end result is an unambiquously nuclear-weapons free Iran, I think the administration is going to find it has an awful long way to go. If they had insisted on a somewhat more modest - yet achievable - goal, they wouldn't be in this fix.

(AP Photos)