Russia to Obama: Don’t you dare impose your own sanctions on Iran

Remind me again what, precisely, we’re getting out of this bold new era of rapprochement and reset buttons with Moscow. The One scaled back European missile defense to show his goodwill; Putin responded by vowing to build exciting new offensive weapons systems. We’ve been softening sanctions proposals against Iran to make them more salable to Russia; meanwhile, they’re using their leverage to try to push the U.S. out of Kyrgyzstan. We got them to agree to some new, nominal, mainly symbolic nuclear cuts; then they turned around and threatened to quit the deal if we press ahead with a missile shield. Now this.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States and other Western nations on Thursday against imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Interfax news agency reported…

Countries facing Security Council sanctions “cannot under any circumstances be the subject of one-sided sanctions imposed by one or other government bypassing the Security Council”, Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

“The position of the United States today does not display understanding of this absolutely clear truth.”…

Lavrov, speaking to deputies from Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the United States tended not to see international law as having pre-eminence over national laws.

“We are now confronted with this problem during discussion of a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iran.”

That used to be true; whether it still is, we’ll find out soon enough. As for his claim that there’s only one road to Sanctionsland and it runs through the UN, as I understand it the entire point of getting Russia and China to endorse some weak-tea measures in the Security Council is to give the U.S. and Europe political cover to impose tougher sanctions of their own. A Russian ultimatum demanding that we agree not to act unilaterally would defeat the whole purpose. David Ignatius:

The next step in this pressure campaign is the sanctions regime being crafted by Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. This will have several interlocking components: The showpiece will be a new U.N. Security Council resolution to add sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated companies, along with other Iranian firms involved in manufacturing, transporting and financing weapons shipments and other illicit activities. But that’s just the beginning.

The administration knows the resolution will be watered down by Russia and China, but it wants the U.N. sanctions anyway — as a platform for additional measures by the United States and its allies. It’s these private and unilateral sanctions that will have real bite: As the Iranians try to evade them, their deception will trigger additional punitive measures.

“If you focus on bad conduct, their evasion doesn’t undermine sanctions but escalates them,” explains one senior official.

This isn’t the first time Russia’s whined about unilateral sanctions but the language is sharper now than it used to be. I assume it’s a bluff; if they back out of a Security Council deal, the U.S. and EU will impose their own sanctions anyway and Russia will have lost whatever leverage it had. It also sets a bad precedent from Moscow’s standpoint insofar as it marginally reduces the taboo on unilateral action. Imagine what a future Republican president will do with the idea that not even the sunshine-and-candy-canes diplomacy of Hopenchange could break through the wall of Russian obstructionism. If they won’t even agree to symbolic sanctions, why bother with the UN in the first place?

As I’m writing this, Reuters is reporting that Obama’s phoned Medvedev to discuss undisclosed matters. Stay tuned.

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