The main powers of the UN Security Council have decided that the standoff over Iran's nuclear program should proceed to the UNSC for a resolution. Speaking for all five permanent members of the UNSC as well as the EU, the French Foreign Minister told the press that the Iranians had not taken negotiations seriously:

World powers agreed Wednesday to send Iran back to the United Nation's Security Council for possible punishment, saying the clerical regime has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program.

The United States and other permanent members of the powerful U.N. body said Iran has had long enough to say whether it will meet the world's terms to open bargaining that would give Tehran economic and energy incentives in exchange for giving up suspicious activities.

"The Iranians have given no indication at all that they are ready to engage seriously on the substance of our proposals," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on behalf the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China, the five permanent Security Council members, plus Germany and the European Union.

Everyone already understood that the Iranians had done nothing but stall for time ever since they received the last proposal from the EU-3 for a resolution to the issue. The Iranians said that it would take over two months to review the incentive package, a time frame rejected by the US and the EU. Patience finally ran out today, the deadline announced by the US earlier this month, when Iran still had no substantive response to the offer.

Will the UNSC do anything about the situation? China and Russia have acted as obstacles to any resolution in the past, but today they joined the rest of the powers in the announcement. We can still expect them to resist the application of sanctions on Iran, but at least the stall has failed. The US and the EU have done what they can to placate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahcracy, and their silence shows that their intent has been to stall long enough to attempt to split what consensus exists at the UN.

Iran failed at that mission. Instead, their obstinacy has provided a moment of rare unity, and Iran may find that Russia and China will not provide the kind of political cover on which they rely.

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Tracked on July 12, 2006 7:22 PM