Federico Bordonaro

Un’analisi di Oxford Analytica, ripresa dal sito di Forbes, spiega i dettagli della pericolosa escalation tra Iran e USA sulla questione dell’arricchimento dell’uranio.

While the emphasis is on diplomacy, and U.S. air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities are not currently considered a serious possibility, President George W. Bush and his officials have repeated that all options are on the table. In reality, the U.S. administration may have to settle for delaying, rather than stopping, Iran’s nuclear program.

A strategy of graduated sanctions is also fraught with problems. Furthermore, Iran is not without leverage of its own. The measures that the Security Council will adopt when it takes up the Iran issue in March cannot be foreseen with any degree of certainty. Much depends on negotiations that will take place in the intervening few weeks.

However, the sanctions route could escalate the crisis. One possible scenario runs as follows:

–Washington and the EU succeed in securing Security Council approval for an initial, but limited, set of sanctions.

–Iran retaliates by accelerating its enrichment and centrifuge production program and uses surrogates to create trouble for the U.S. in Iraq.

–The Security Council feels compelled to intensify sanctions.

–Iran, increasingly isolated internationally, retaliates with additional measures.

Negotiations or informal discussions between Iran and other parties will take place before the March 6 IAEA meeting and subsequent Security Council meeting at several levels. Some ideas for bridging the differences between Iran and the EU/U.S. position have been suggested, but both sides have taken positions on which they will find it difficult to compromise.

Security Council-mandated sanctions would set Iran, the United States and the EU on a collision course of escalating actions and counter-actions. Ideas for resolving the crisis exist, but appear to have little chance of success.