Mideast skepticism on Iran sanctions

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s unexpected acquiescence to demands that it open its nuclear program to international inspectors makes a good case for what many skeptics have argued all along: sanctions are much more effective as a threat than a reality.

Iran’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf are pleased with the outcome of Geneva talks in which Tehran agreed to several important confidence-building measures, but they are not fully convinced that the Islamic Republic’s new tone of cooperativeness is not another gambit to buy time and regroup.

“I think we saw an attempt by both sides to make sure the talks continue. Both sides got a little of what they wanted,” said Christian Koch, director of international studies at the Gulf Research Center, a Dubai-based think tank. “Iran got some of the pressure off. For them, that was important.” 

For the U.S., the main gain was engaging in direct talks about Tehran’s nuclear program, something the Iranians went into Thursday’s meeting insisting they would not do.

The trick now for the U.S. and its European allies is to keep Russia and China on board in order to keep the threat of sanctions fresh in Iran’s mind.

“Sanctions don’t work, but they are necessary,” said Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a political scientist at the United Arab Emirates University. “You have to apply them because you don’t have anything else. But we know from past experience that imposing sanctions doesn’t change the behavior of these governments. In fact it stiffens their behavior.” Iran has been under some form of sanction since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The subject of sanctions is a touchy one in the UAE, especially here in Dubai, a bustling, freewheeling port just 105 miles across the Persian Gulf from Iran.

Nearly a quarter of Dubai’s 1.4 million inhabitants are of Iranian origin, and the city has long been the safety valve — or the leaky valve, depending on one’s perspective — of the various sanction regimes imposed on Iran. More than 10,000 Iranian businesses are registered in the UAE, most of them in Dubai, according to Dubai-based Iranian Business Council.

Iranian speculators looking for a safe haven for their capital helped fuel the real estate boom that has transformed Dubai’s skyline and economy over the last 10 years. An estimated $300 billion in Iranian assets is invested or deposited here.

Dubai has no doubt profited from its role as Iran’s window to the world, but so too has the U.S. Shut out of Iran for three decades, the State Department has turned its consulate here into an important listening post.

Although Iran and the UAE continue to be major trading partners, there is little love lost between the governments of the two countries.

“There is no trust in the relationship,” said the Gulf Research Council’s Koch. The UAE and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman) “do not feel comfortable about Iran’s intentions and do not want to live in shadow of Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.

Although it is rarely said publicly, many in senior positions here believe that sanctions will not work and that the only way to stop Iran’s nuclear program is to bomb it, even if it is Israel that does the bombing.

“No one is saying we are in favor of a military strike. But at some point you come to a red line where the choice is an Iran with a nuclear weapon or a military strike to prevent that from happening. And when it comes to that, we’ll take the latter,” Koch said.

While the U.S. is trying to trying to put the brakes on Iran’s nuclear program, it has given the green light to the UAE to buy U.S. nuclear power technology and fuel, and to develop a non-military nuclear power program of its own. The deal was signed during the final weeks of the Bush administration and approved by the Obama administration. It is scheduled to go into effect later this month. The UAE has pledged that it will use its newly acquired technology for civilian purposes only. Still, the idea of another nuclear player in the Gulf has given pause to both Iran and some members of the U.S. Congress.

Ahead of the Geneva talks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned “the little nations of the Gulf” against aligning themselves too closely with outside powers.

Meanwhile, some members of Congress, mindful that A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, used a dummy company in Dubai to smuggle nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, are questioning the wisdom of the UAE deal.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said that allowing the UAE to purchase nuclear technology would be a "leap in the dark with unpredictable consequences for U.S. security."