US pushing for sanctions on Iran. The BBC reports:
The US is circulating a discussion paper on possible further UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, says a Western diplomat at the UN. The measures include expanding travel bans and asset freezes on people connected with the nuclear industry. (…) On Wednesday, the Western diplomat confirmed reports by the Reuters news agency that the US paper talks about expanding travel bans and asset freezes on those connected to Iran’s nuclear industry, as well as financial measures such as placing restrictions on its central bank. In particular, it suggests targeting senior members of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which oversees Iran’s nuclear programme and its strategic weapons. The BBC’s Barbara Plett, at UN headquarters in New York, says this is very much a preliminary stage. The US and its European allies on the Security Council – the UK, France and Germany – would have to eventually win agreement from Russia, which has been reluctant to pursue sanctions, and China, which openly opposes them.
But according to a Washington Post analysis, “China experts believe Beijing – despite heated anti-U.S. rhetoric of recent days – won’t stand in the way” of sanctions.
The AFP has some remarks by Catherine Ashton’s on Iran: quoted here.
Don’t expect too much from a deal with the Taliban. Michael O’Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan write in the Daily Beast:
There is a role for trying to wean away some Taliban supporters from the core ideological movement, to be sure. But we must be careful not to seem so desperate for a deal that the Taliban misinterpret our offer to talk as a position of weakness, or making the best of a losing hand. (…) They believe themselves to be winning and as such continue to insist that any negotiations only occur once foreign forces are gone—meaning when they would have the upper hand over the government militarily, in all likelihood. (…) So yes, let’s keep reintegration and reconciliation in our tool kit. However, it is still premature to expect much of the idea, and such approaches will always have to be handled very, very carefully in Afghanistan.
Read also a Washington Post story about the rather negative Afghan views of the new reconciliation strategy: here.
Obama right to skip EU-US summit in Madrid, says Adrian Hamilton in the Independent:
President Obama doesn’t do idle chat. When he speaks to foreign leaders – unlike his predecessor, George W Bush – he likes the conversation to have a purpose. Not for him the bonding exchange or the photo opportunity. Which is why he seems to prefer Angela Merkel to most other European leaders. And why he has so publicly turned down the EU’s invitation to a summit in Madrid. Call it a snub if you like, but the simpler explanation is that he simply saw no point in it.
And he is right. Just what was the purpose of the summit? It was called by Spain’s Jose Luis Zapatero largely with the aim of pre-empting the newly appointed full-time President of Europe, Herman von Rompuy, from doing the same.
In a similar vein, the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum comments:
The president is absolutely right to ignore what would certainly have been another boring meeting, accompanied by excellent food and inconsequential conversation.
For a decade, Europe’s leaders wrangled over a constitution — now called the Lisbon Treaty — that was supposed to give the continent a clearer voice in international affairs. But when it finally came down to selecting a president and a foreign minister of Europe, the Europeans punted. They chose two perfectly nice, perfectly bland, and completely unknown politicians, neither of whom has yet said or done anything of any consequence. In other words, the real leaders of Europe — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France — don’t want the continent to have a foreign policy at all. But if they don’t want to speak in unison, then why should the American president pretend to listen? He can get a lot more done by calling up Merkel, Sarkozy or Britain’s prime minister for the occasional off-the-record chat.
It didn’t have to be this way: A year ago, at the start of this administration, Europeans had a chance to make a real impression in Washington. All doors were open, all ears were listening, any European coalition that had wanted to help solve one or more of the world’s security issues would have been granted carte blanche. Nothing happened, no such coalition emerged, and the window of opportunity closed. The president now has his mind on other things. His failure to turn up isn’t a “snub,” it’s a thoroughly rational decision.
For Judy Dempsey, transatlantic relations are handicapped by a lack of leadership in Europe. She writes in her New York Times column:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain is facing an election campaign. Besides, he has little interest in Europe. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have supported the United States in seeking stronger sanctions against Iran. Apart from that, neither leader has shown great interest in pursuing the further integration of Europe that is crucial for making the bloc more united in defense and security policy. Mrs. Merkel’s center-right coalition government has spent much of the time since elections last September bickering over domestic policy while she herself now shows little interest in foreign policy, or even traveling.
“It is not clear who is speaking for Europe,” said Stephen Flanagan, defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The great hope that the naming of Catherine Ashton,” the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, “would lead to coherence has not turned true,” he said.
EU’s foreign policy challenges. Catherine Ashton spoke to the FT’s Tony Barber:
She offers compact, guarded answers to questions on world affairs. She lacks the confidence of a trained diplomat, for she is not one, and appears anxious not to put a foot wrong so soon after taking up a job for which some critics considered her ill-qualified.
The only controversy that has arisen since her appointment in November concerns last month’s Haiti earthquake, when she came under attack, largely from French sources, for not travelling immediately to the Caribbean and waving the EU flag. “I will go to Haiti when the noise has died down and I can be of real use,” she says. (…)
The potential for enhancing Europe’s ability to speak with one voice is clear, but so are the limits imposed by the fact some governments do not agree on crucial dossiers.
Take Kosovo, whose independence five EU states refuse to recognise. Lady Ashton counters: “There are differences over recognition but there’s absolute agreement on the substantial programme of help that we’re putting in place in Kosovo. My job is to translate this position into action and represent it. When we don’t have agreement, there are ongoing discussions among member states.”
Thornier still is the Middle East, where Sweden used its EU presidency last year to push for a more pro-Palestinian line. Germany and other states more sympathetic to Israel put their foot down. Such differences, she says, were reconciled in a statement by EU foreign ministers in December that called for “a two-state solution with the state of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine”.
Lady Ashton plans to visit the region next month. “The December council conclusions are the basis on which I will go on my visit to the Middle East. All the shades of opinion coalesced in December around a form of words that all 27 member states felt comfortable with. There may be national positions that go beyond that in one way or another, but I am able to use that consensus to say things about where we, the EU, stand,” she says.
One urgent challenge facing Europe is how to rally Chinese and Russian support for a possible effort at tightening sanctions against Iran on account of its nuclear programme. Lady Ashton touched on the issue when she met Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister, in London last week. “It’s clear, unfortunately, that Iran has not been willing to move forward in the way we wanted. The important thing was to say to China that we think there now need to be discussions [at the United Nations Security Council],” Lady Ashton says.
Much of her work in the next two months will be putting flesh on the bones of the EU’s plans to build its own diplomatic service. Some steps have already been taken, she says. “At the UN there used to be a council delegation [representing EU governments] and a Commission delegation, operating side by side but separately. Now we’ve brought them together . . The EU is the biggest aid donor in the world, and we’re demonstrating that we are speaking as one.”
Bad timing, wrong approach? The ECFR’s François Godement writes about Madrid’s initiative on the EU arms embargo against China:
What is striking about Moratinos’ call was the lack of method and strategy. Going public, not mentioning what China might do to justify the change of policy, and suggesting there is some urgency to the matter are all bad negotiating moves.
In our EU-China power audit (published last year), we argued that consideration should be given to lifting the arms embargo, but only against some very significant move by the Chinese. The watershed example would be China’s support in getting Iran to quit its nuclear programme. One might also imagine less ambitious goals of reciprocity – such as a key commitment by China to goals of better governance in Africa.
Instead, Moratinos has failed to suggest any effort China might make to warrant such a big political move by Europe. There seems to be some expectation of future Chinese goodwill of an unspecified nature. But no details of what, when, how and why. China is a realist power, and we all know the likelihood of it providing unsolicited concessions. So this political blunder is not just in the timing.
Having gone through the experience in 2004-2005 of seeing the Europeans make exactly the same promise on the arms embargo, and then back off, China has retained a very low profile on Moratinos’ proposal. But it is bound to have taken due notice of the weakness, division, and lack of coordinated thinking on EU-China relations.
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