Headway is being made in the approval of a new set of United Nations sanctions on Iran, according to U.S. officials. Last Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—including China—had agreed to discuss a new round of sanctions. China quickly clarified that statement, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying China had not given approval for new sanctions, despite being opposed to the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. Yesterday, the sanctions that President Barack Obama said he hoped would be in place “within weeks” looked as far away as ever when the UN Security Council failed to include talks on Iran’s nuclear program on its agenda for April.

But if the subject of sanctions did actually get to the discussion stage in the Security Council—or even got approved—would Tehran be put off its nuclear aspirations? It is hard to argue with the assertion of Iran itself that talk of sanctions is just an empty threat. Last Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said “the talk of sanctions is a threat that has been ineffective over the past 30 years.” Indeed, Tehran has continued with its nuclear program despite three sets of existing sanctions. Further sanctions would only lull the international community into a greater false sense of security in relation to the threat posed by Iran.

Moreover, according to Haaretz, the proposed new sanctions do not include the kind of tools that could affect a change in Iranian policy:

Iranian shipping companies will not be blacklisted nor the international assets of Iran frozen, and oil or gas shipments from the Islamic Republic will not be cut, after these proposals were all rejected by Russia or China. It is more accurate to characterize the potential sanctions as a comprehensive warning against doing business with Tehran.Its omissions cannot come as consolation to those concerned about Iran’s development of nuclear technology that could produce weapons of mass destruction.

As usual, Russia and China have already managed to take the teeth out of any further sanctions—before they are even discussed in the Security Council.

The Wall Street Journal points out, the latest set of proposed “tougher” sanctions on Iran rely on asset freezes to put pressure on Tehran. “But a close look at how much Iranian money has been frozen to date in the U.S. under existing sanctions shows that the total amount is surprisingly small, less than $43 million, or roughly a quarter of what Iran earns in oil revenue in a single day” (April 5). Other countries have frozen much less. “It’s peanuts,” says Jeremy P. Carver, a British attorney who has advised governments on implementing sanctions. “It’s not going to really change a thing.”

The Journal continues:

U.S. officials do not dispute that current amounts of frozen Iranian assets seem small. In some cases, Iran has shifted the money outside the U.S. or EU to avoid sanctions. The officials emphasize that their strategy is not to seize many assets, but to pressure Iran to change its ways by making it extremely difficult for it to do business.

Again, Tehran has already demonstrated that such pressure will not induce it to abandon its nuclear goals. When the UN imposed sanctions on Iran in 2006, the resolution prompted Iran to vow to drastically speed up its nuclear program, with its chief nuclear negotiator saying work would commence immediately to install a further 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges.

The proposed new asset freezes come as an Iranian firm recently acquired hardware used to enrich uranium, circumventing current sanctions designed to prevent such purchases, the Wall Street Journal reported April 3. Officials aware of the purchases said that in recent weeks Iran obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges from a French company.

It is as plain as ever that sanctions are not going to stop Iran’s nuclear push. While the U.S. will continue to threaten and talk of imposing further sanctions, we can expect the impact of any such sanctions to be minimal. To find out what will actually put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, read our booklet The King of the South.