After IAEA report, US strikes a blow for Iran sanctions

Since the release of a new IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program, not a day has gone by without US officials lobbying for strong sanctions against the Tehran government.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the cynical report is more than enough to bolster the case for punitive measures against Iran.

“If Iran continues on its current course, fails to engage constructively, fails to answer the questions that the United States has and the international community has, then it is going to face increasing pressure, including increasing sanctions,” Crowley said.

On Thursday, the new head of the UN nuclear watchdog Yukiya Amano issued a two-sided report about Iran’s nuclear program.

The report, while critical of some aspects of Iran’s uranium enrichment, once again verified the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in the country.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said on Thursday that Amano’s report shows more than ever that Tehran’s nuclear activity is in fact peaceful.

Along the same vein, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Iran neither believes in atomic bombs nor is it seeking to develop such weapons.

But US officials, who have long advocated stringent measures against Iran, have used the newly-released report as an opportunity to impose a new round of sanctions on the country.

“The time is running out,” said Congressman Mark Kirk, co-chair of the bi-partisan House Iran Working Group on Friday.

Kirk insisted that current UN sanctions “have not yielded any results” and therefore there is need for more extreme actions against Iran to prevent it from enriching uranium.

He said that the opportunity has finally come for the United States to impose an embargo on gasoline deliveries to Iran in order to force it into compliance over its nuclear program.

According to Kirk, a US military option would be “complicated, expensive and unpredictable”, but gasoline “quarantine” would have disastrous economic consequences that may eventually force the Tehran government to give into international pressure.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, meanwhile, has succinctly warned Iran of ‘consequences.’

The comments have received widespread support among US allies, particularly Israel, Britain and France.

The UN nuclear watchdog has carried out the highest number of inspections in its history on Iran’s nuclear energy program and has also found nothing to support Western allegations that the program has diverted toward weaponization.