Iran sanctions efforts continue.
It doesn't appear to be stopping the march toward additional sanctions:
The United States has reached agreement with Russia and China on a strong draft resolution to impose new United Nations sanctions on Iran over its uranium-enrichment program, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Tuesday.Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a scheduled hearing on a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia, Clinton shrugged off a surprise deal announced Monday in which Iran would swap a portion of its low-enriched uranium for higher-grade uranium to power a research reactor that produces medical isotopes. The deal, brokered by Turkey and Brazil during a high-level visit to Tehran, was meant in part to assuage concerns over Iran's nuclear program and discourage new U.N. sanctions.
According to the Washington Post, the U.N. route is not an end in itself but a means of convincing some EU members to get tough:
European and U.S. officials have made clear that a new U.N. resolution would be the weakest of three steps toward "crippling sanctions." The other two steps are a European Union resolution and tough unilateral sanctions by individual countries.But nothing can happen before the imprimatur of a new U.N. resolution, since some European countries will not act on sanctions without U.N. approval. Diplomats said that some of the proposed language in the current resolution was added with the full knowledge that it would be removed by the Russians and Chinese -- but then could be revived in the European resolution. The individual country sanctions would come after the European Union has acted and would be led by the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other like-minded nations, diplomats said.
If sanctions can not get out of the Security Council, it would seem that all eyes would be on Israel.
