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I just noticed that Mr. Comras has posted a further commentary, Weak Sanctions On Iran Simply Won’t Work, on Counter Terrorism Blog expanding his argument by comparing the five principal sanctions in Resolution 1747 with those in previous Security Council Sanction Resolutions. Take a close look and compare what the SC served up to Serbia, Libya, or the Afghanistan of the Taliban era, next to the “exercise of vigilance and restraint” urged as enforcement encouragement in 1747. It’s like a large tumbler of Jack Daniels’ finest next to a Shirley Temple (no offense meant to our former UN Ambassador). And the big, bad Security Council thinks this monumental exhibition of invertebrate weakness is going to bring our friend, Mr. Ahmadinejad, before the cameras to announce Iran’s renunciation of it’s cherished nuclear arms program? Not in this life. More likely, they all know quite well that 1747, like all their other impotent flailings will do nothing at all to halt Tehran’s inexorable march toward a pile of nukes of their very own.
Sadly, Iran’s precarious economic situation (20% unemployment, dwindling oil reserves, dependence on imported gasoline, their hideous demographic situation, etc.) offers the SC one instance where severe economic sanctions, as in times of yore, might for once have had a chance of working. However, most of the Council seems to have put their trade deals with Iran before global security. Ahmadinejad took excellent notes when Saddam wheeled and dealed his OFF scams, and even improved on the performance.
The Security Council will one day rue the lack of courage and unity that brought forth soggy 1747, whose principal effect will be to make war with Iran more certain. If Iran looses the war, the oil and gas fields of the Middle East will be in ruins; we know what calamity this would bring for every industrialized nation in the world. If Iran wins that war, their imperial and desperate dreams of empire fulfilled by the annexation of Iraq, Azerbaijan, and on, and on, can anyone imagine that those trade deals will be worth even the paper they are printed on? Does France, for instance, really believe that in such a brave new world, their Total oil company (whose president, Christophe de Margerie, has just had a second 24-hour tête-à-tête with Judge d’instruction Philippe Courroye, this time about an estimated U$80 million in bribes allegedly passed by Total to Iranian officials to insure they got their gas field deal. M. de Margerie’s first 48-hour rendez-vous with Judge Courroye was about alleged pay-offs to Iraq under OFF.) will be allowed to continue to take profits out of their Iranian operation? And what will Old Europe do then when they will be completely dependent on Russia and Iran for their energy needs? Another commission in Brussels? Just as Iran’s economic and demographic problems would be solved by the annexation of its neighbors and their oil in the middle east, would not the even more severe demographic problem of Russia’s shrinking “european” population’s engulfment by its burgeoning muslim populace also be solved by its own resurgence as an empire with territorial expansion to the west?
Just some thoughts in the night….

(The ever-vigilant and wonderful Eye on the U.N. has the full text of 1747 for those who don’t mind bloodshot eyes. Also, 1747 carries a *** three-star Wimp Alert, keep a full bottle of Maalox at hand when reading it.)