[Joel Brinkley] It’s time for the U.S. and Europe to act on Iran

The world is closing in on Iran, but not aggressively enough. It’s time for Europe to deal the final blow.

The Iranian attack on the British embassy in Tehran was close to an act of war ― as was the attempt to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Given the collection of recent provocations from this rogue state, the West’s extremely slow-motion campaign to end Iran’s nuclear-weapons program needs to be pushed to its denouement.

In recent days, the United States and Europe have been imposing ever more penalties and sanctions ― closing embassies, isolating Iranian officials. But to all of it, Iran’s leaders simply shrug. “We will not budge an iota from the path we are committed to,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed.

Now the most important discussion is under way in Europe. Over the last week, European leaders have been debating whether to impose an oil embargo on Iran. The EU imports 450,000 barrels of Iranian oil each day, about 20 percent of Iran’s output.

At an EU foreign ministers meeting this month, several states including Britain, France and Germany advocated an oil embargo, but some others balked. Greece, for example, complained that while the state’s economy is in crisis, it can’t go prospecting to replace Iran’s oil. The EU said it would make a decision next month, and statements from Tehran last weekend show the regime is terrified of an embargo.

But now Saudi Arabia ― Iran’s hated enemy ― is ramping up production, specifically to replace Europe’s Iranian oil. Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, said he won a commitment from the Saudi ambassador in Washington to increase production, his spokesman told me. And in fact, every day now, Saudi Arabia is pumping 600,000 barrels above normal production ― the highest output in decades ― causing some refineries to throw up their hands and say they can’t take any more.

“Asian refiners are not taking extra Saudi barrels,” energy analyst Alex Yap told Reuters. A South Korea refinery said it was actually cutting its output because of poor economic conditions in the region.

What’s more, Libya is increasing output now that the fighting there is over, and the International Energy Agency reported that during the third quarter of this year, Iraq produced 540,000 more barrels per day than it had a year earlier.

In other words the world is awash in oil ― even as weak economies are reducing demand worldwide. Europe can impose a total oil embargo on Iran and easily replace that oil from other producers.

As if to underscore the point ― and to prod the West to act ― Saudi Arabia hinted last week that it would consider building its own nuclear weapons if the time comes that both Iran and Israel have them,

The U.S. is also pushing South Korea and other customers of Iran to stop buying. And earlier this month, the U.S. Senate voted 100-0 to sanction any financial institution worldwide that does business with the Bank of Iran. For central banks, the prohibition relates only to oil purchases. The House is expected to pass it, too; Iran is a bipartisan concern. With that, Iran will have trouble getting paid for its oil exports.

The International Atomic Energy Agency released documents last month that finally removed nearly all doubt that Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. And yet, as the world angrily reacts, all we hear from Russia and China, Iran’s consistent defenders, is shameful bleating.

In fact, two days after the atomic energy agency released its report, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia’s nuclear-energy corporation, announced that Russia was prepared to begin building new civilian nuclear reactors in Iran. Then Russia’s U.N. ambassador declared: “The sanctions track in the Security Council has been exhausted.” He offered instead the ludicrous observation that “negotiations should continue with Iran.”

A couple of weeks earlier, a new WikiLeaks disclosure showed that China has been facilitating shipments of ballistic-missile components from North Korea to Iran. And China’s foreign ministry offered similar sophistry: resolve the problem with “dialogue and negotiations.”

Even after all that has happened, those two states are still threatening to wield their veto in the Security Council. So it’s imperative that the U.S. and Europe act on their own.

Israel’s defense minister told CNN last month that Iran is less than a year away from completing work on a bomb. Some American officials say Israel’s estimates are often exaggerated. Still, the fact remains, this dance with Iran has been under way for almost 10 years. It’s well past time to bring it to a close.

By Joel Brinkley

Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times. ― Ed.

(Tribune Media Services)