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Washington not to undertake military actions against Tehran despite inefficiency of anti-Iranian sanctions

25 May 2011 [10:11] - TODAY.AZ
Washington will not undertake military actions against Tehran despite the inefficiency of the increasingly tighten economic sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, says Philip Carl Salzman, a professor of anthropology at McGill University.

"My impression is that conformity is only partial, and that Iran has found a variety of ingenious ways to get around sanctions, Salzman, scientific researcher of the Fund for Democracy Protection, wrote in an e-mail to Trend. I do not believe that sanctions will have any effect on the will of the IRI to continue with its military development programs."

On Sunday, May 22, U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking at an AIPAC Conference in Washington, said that "the U.S. will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons."
Salzman said the Iranian people might be squeezed economically, but the IRI will not be deterred by that. It has "greater" goals in mind.

The U.S. and other Western countries accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons for military purposes under the guise of peaceful nuclear energy program. So far, the UN Security Council has adopted six resolutions to suspend the nuclear program of Iran, four of which involve economic and some political sanctions against Iran.

Resolutions approved by the UN Security Council, as well as additional unilateral sanctions adopted in summer 2010 by the U.S. Congress and the foreign ministers of EU countries, primarily focused on the energy, banking and financial sectors of Iran.

On Monday, May 23, at a regular meeting in Brussels the EU foreign ministers agreed on a significant expansion of sanctions against Iran and decided to include about 100 Iranian companies in the sanctions list. Sanctions also include the freezing of accounts.

However, Iran continues to insist that as a party to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, it has every right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and refuses to suspend uranium enrichment on its territory.

Despite the inefficiency of sanctions taken so far against Iran and its unwillingness to stop its nuclear work, Salzman believes that the U.S. will not undertake any military action against Iran's nuclear program.

"First of all, the U.S. is tied up militarily in three wars already, and while one of them is largely over, the other two aren't going so well, he said. - Secondly, Iran is geographically and militarily in a position to cause a lot of trouble in the sensitive Gulf region, as well as in Israel with Hezbollah."

Salzman believes that an American attack would likely bring a response that would spread wide and draw in many states. "Thirdly, the U.S. is in deep financial trouble, and cannot afford to finance any more wars, or to cope with any crashes in the world economic system as a result of new wars," the expert said.

In sum, the Obama Administration is thinking of "containment" of a nuclear Iran, rather than a military intervention, Salzman concluded.

At a press conference in February 2010, the chief of U.S. Joint Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said that military intervention can not solve the Iranian nuclear issue.

In early August of the same year, he said that the U.S. has a plan for military action against Iran. However, Mullen expressed hope that the diplomatic efforts of the international community and the sanctions it imposed on Iran lead the Islamic Republic to abandon its uranium enrichment program.

During 2010, the U.S. Administration officials have repeatedly said that the U.S. has a plan for a military solution to a potential conflict, but called it an extreme option, calling for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian problem.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the U.S. has a potential of strike on Iran, but the use of military force against Iran would be a mistake. According to him, the military operation in Iran would merely postpone the establishment of a nuclear warhead, but will not prevent it.


/Trend/
URL: http://www.today.az/news/regions/86825.html

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