U.S. Sanctions on Iran Nuclear Issue Failing, Experts Say

Vienna, Austria — American-driven economic sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to halt its atomic program are failing, leaving the government in Tehran with scope to use record oil prices to consolidate its regional influence, Middle East analysts and former diplomats said.

"The U.S. doesn't really have an Iran strategy," an Iranian-born analyst meeting with American generals in Iraq this week, Vali Nasr, said. "Every set of Iran sanctions is weaker than the previous one and Iran can tolerate them with $130 a barrel oil until the time comes to talk."

Mr. Nasr was speaking at a 12th-century monastery in Talloires, France, where current and former American, European, and Middle Eastern diplomats met over the weekend to discuss the future of American-Iranian relations. The Medford, Massachusetts-based Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, America's oldest diplomatic training academy, hosted the talks.

Iran, with the world's no. 2 oil and natural gas reserves, is insulated from the impact of three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions by high oil prices. Brent crude oil touched a record $135.14 a barrel on May 22 on London's ICE Futures Europe Exchange. The diplomatic impasse between Ameria and Iran will help to maintain high energy costs and encourage the government in Tehran to advance its nuclear ambitions, Mr. Nasr said.

By September Iran will almost double, to around 6,000, its number of centrifuges, the fast-spinning machines that separate uranium isotopes for power stations and bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported May 26. The IAEA met yesterday in Vienna over Iran's nuclear work, which America and several major allies say is cover for the development of a bomb. Iran says it only wants to generate electricity.

President Ahmadinejad's government wants to build as many centrifuges as possible before it begins any talks with America because Iran assumes that it won't be forced to give up technologies it has already developed if a bargain is struck, Mr. Nasr said.

"The U.S. policy gives Iran reason to accelerate its atomic work," said Mr. Nasr, 41, who emigrated with his family after the 1979 revolution and teaches at Tufts University in Medford. "The bomb would provide strategic parity" and makes America "conventional superiority irrelevant," he said.

The question of how to handle Iran and its nuclear ambitions has become a significant issue in the American presidential election.