The agreement by the UN security council's dominant five powers to pursue sanctions against Iran yesterday came as a surprisingly fast riposte to Iran's last-ditch diplomatic efforts to fend off punitive measures, and suggests Tehran may have overplayed its hand.
A day earlier, Iranian, Turkish and Brazilian leaders met in Tehran to declare that sanctions had been made irrelevant by their joint diplomatic breakthrough. Iran would embrace a deal agreed in principle with major powers last October, but subsequentlywhich it had walked away from, involving the transfer of some of its enriched uranium stockpile abroad in return for fuel rods for the Tehran research reactor.
Yesterday's decision by Russia and China to press on with sanctions with the US, Britain, France and Germany was a clear signal that they were not impressed. The reason seems to be that Iran was over-confident, offering too little and asking for too much.
On 6 May, Iran'sforeign minister Manouch–ehr Mottaki hosted a New York dinner for security council members. Intended as a charm offensive, it backfired when Mottaki insisted that even if the research reactor deal went through, Iran would continue to produce its own 20%-enriched uranium.
That declaration, blithely repeated by Iran's foreign ministry on Monday, shocked the assembled diplomats. It marked an aggressive escalation in Iran's enrichment programme and its only civilian pretext to fuel the reactor.
Iran caused further alarm by refusing to discuss its enrichment programme with the international community's designated negotiator, the EU's Cathy Ashton.Yesterday's decision will infuriate Turkey and Brazil, who will see it as the established powers quashing a genuine attempt at mediation by two new voices on the world stage.
The big five will be able to push this through the security council over Turkish, Brazilian and other objections, but it will leave behind a bitter taste of unfairness at the UN.