Claudia Rossett, close observer of the moral cesspool that is the United Nations, explains how Iran has so far outsmarted the diplomatic smart set, and will continue to do so. To be this successful, a deception must be welcomed by the deceived, and this one is.
Certainly Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not seem deeply worried about the prospect of U.N. sanctions. Apart from some throwaway lines about his government's peace-loving ways, he has rejected U.N. demands, blocked U.N. inspectors, brandished samples of enriched uranium, and last month inaugurated an Iranian heavy water plant that could be used to produce plutonium. Nor did a series of extant U.N. resolutions prevent Tehran's A-team terrorist affiliate in Lebanon, Hezbollah, from launching a war this summer while Mr. Ahmadinejad pondered his options.Posted by Alan at September 4, 2006 10:18 AMSome of Mr. Ahmadinejad's behavior can be discounted on grounds that he is a messianic crackpot. But there is plenty of evidence that he is making a highly rational calculation about the ease with which the U.N. can be corrupted, divided, delayed and defied--without serious penalty.
U.N. sanctions programs depend on the agreement and cooperation of member states under a set of rules dictated not by the interests of the modern free world, but by the decayed, despot-infested collective that is the contemporary U.N. And, as prefigured under U.N. sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, major players, like Russia and China, will almost certainly cheat. Iran, with 10% of the world's known oil reserves, and the world's second largest proven reserves of natural gas, has enough resources to grease the way.
Indeed, the general greasing of Iran's important U.N. connections is already well advanced.