Obama's sorry sanctions have little effect on Iran

WASHINGTON — In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Barack Obama stressed not once but twice Iran's increasing "isolation" from the world. This claim is not surprising considering that after 16 months of an "extended hand" policy, in response to which Iran actually accelerated its nuclear program — more centrifuges, more enrichment sites, higher enrichment levels — Iranian "isolation" is about the only achievement to which the administration can even plausibly lay claim.

Isolation may have failed to deflect Iran's nuclear ambitions, but it does enjoy incessant repetition by the administration. For example, in his State of the Union address, Obama declared that "the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated." Two months later, Vice President Joe Biden asserted that "since our administration has come to power, I would point out that Iran is more isolated — internally, externally — has fewer friends in the world." At the START signing in April, Obama declared that "those nations that refuse to meet their obligations (to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, i.e., Iran) will be isolated."

Really? On Tuesday, one day before the president touted passage of a surpassingly weak U.N. resolution and declared Iran yet more isolated, the leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran gathered at a security summit in Istanbul "in a display of regional power that appeared to be calculated to test the United States," as The New York Times put it. I would add: And calculated to demonstrate the hollowness of U.S. claims of Iranian isolation, to flaunt Iran's growing ties with Russia and quasi-alliance with Turkey, a NATO member no less.

Apart from the fact that isolation is hardly an end in itself and is pointless if, regardless, Iran rushes headlong to become a nuclear power, the very claim of Iran's increasing isolation is increasingly implausible. Just last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted an ostentatious love fest in Tehran with the leaders of Turkey and Brazil. The three raised hands together and announced a uranium transfer deal that was designed to torpedo U.S. attempts to impose U.N. sanctions.

Six weeks ago, Iran was elected to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, a grotesque choice that mocked Obama's attempt to isolate and delegitimize Iran in the very international institutions he treasures.

Increasing isolation? In the last year alone, Ahmadinejad has been welcomed in Kabul, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Caracas, Brasilia, La Paz, Senegal and Gambia. Today, he is in China.