The Council imposed sanctions after Iran refused to do so.

China seems likely to block effective sanctions on Iran because of its close energy relationship with the country.

American diplomats are never going to persuade the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran s energy exports.

In return for all of this, no new sanctions would be imposed, and access to aircraft spare parts would be eased.

But its other intention was probably to stymie American efforts to adopt new United Nations sanctions on Iran.

But Russian leaders resist tough sanctions on Iran, lest they jeopardize financial dealings there and lead to increased Iranian support for Muslim minorities inside Russia.

By contrast, some American policymakers continue to believe that Iran would abandon its enrichment program if only the European Union imposed unilateral sanctions.

Russia continues to place hurdles before American proposals for sanctions on Iran, has signed with it lavish energy contracts, and is about to sell it advanced aerial systems aimed at thwarting a possible Israeli or American attack.

America s drive to force Iran to stop its nuclear program through an ineffective sanctions regime has been no more successful than any of its other schemes to isolate the region s extremists.

Turkey s no to new sanctions against Iran in all likelihood will prove to be a significant error, unless Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can deliver a real turnaround in Iran s nuclear policy.

Iran has threatened to cut oil exports if the United Nations Security Council imposes sanctions against it for violating its nuclear pledges.

And Turkey s subsequent vote in the United Nations Security Council against imposing additional sanctions on Iran seemed to offer further proof that Turkey had adopted an Islamic foreign policy.

Third, following from this, there is a clear perception in Iran that acquiring an actual bomb would lead to impossibly stringent economic sanctions.

Israel slapped draconian sanctions on Gaza.

While the Western powers have embraced ever harsher sanctions, Russia and China view Iran as a tool in their global competition with the US.

Indeed, when the UN Security Council formally demanded a stop to the enrichment program and imposed mild sanctions last December, Iran s defiant answer was to increase enrichment activity.

Russia and China, which claim to oppose the emergence of a nuclear armed Iran, are now being pressed to support new, tough sanctions to increase the odds it does not happen.

The prospect of a threat to the stability of the greater Middle East and to the flow of oil should give China an incentive to support robust sanctions against Iran.

Russia s other aim has been to exempt from UN sanctions the Bushehr nuclear reactor that it has been building for Iran.

Israel slapped draconian sanctions on Gaza.

If that were not enough, Bush s threat of sanctions against Iran poses the risks of interruptions of supplies from one of the world s largest producers.

More important, China must make clear that it will support tougher sanctions on Iran and help to implement them if the Iranian regime continues to lie about its nuclear program.

Sanctions and Solidarity

Third, Iran is anxious that weaponization could exhaust any remaining tolerance from Russia and China. Fourth, it wants to avoid the further economic pain that universally applied sanctions would cause.

This would not be achieved, however, through an inevitably imperfect sanctions regime, or by America s resort to Cold War logic aimed at breaking Iran s backbone by drawing it into a ruinous arms race.

The Iranians want to resolve their problems directly with the IAEA, and to avoid negotiating under the cloud of UN Security Council resolutions, which impose sanctions on Iran to force suspension of enrichment.

Once in obvious breach of the NPT, universal participation in a much tougher sanctions regime is seen in Iran as inevitable.

In early January 2007, the US government imposed economic sanctions on three Russian companies, including Rosoboronexport, for selling missiles and other prohibited military technologies to Iran and Syria.

LOS ANGELES amp 45 amp 45 The approval of fresh sanctions on Iran marks the third time that the United Nations Security Council has been galvanized to stem the Islamic Republic s feared uranium enrichment efforts.

Penalties for non compliance

Severe Sentences

Russia s tone, especially toward the United States, began to change last year, but the Kremlin s support for a fourth United Nations Security Council sanctions resolution on Iran demonstrates that, today, there is real substance.

Russia, of course, helped Iran kick off its nuclear program, and has often defended the Iranian regime from stiffer United Nations sanctions.

Begin to impose strong sanctions against cartel conduct.

But what happens if this brings either no Iranian commitment to refrain from weaponizing nuclear power, or no acceptance of tough monitoring of such a pledge? China and Russia seem unlikely to support any further sanctions against Iran if diplomacy fails.

Resistance to sanctions from Russia, China, and France has persuaded US officials to allow more time for diplomacy before pushing for punitive action in the Security Council.

BERLIN Turkey s no last month (a vote cast together with Brazil) to the new sanctions against Iran approved in the United Nations Security Council dramatically reveals the full extent of the country s estrangement from the West.

It also establishes stricter penalties for contraventions of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.

France led the Libya operation, and is doing much the same with attempts to impose stronger sanctions against Iran and provide support for the United Nations in Côte d Ivoire.

Such a policy can include additional Security Council sanctions, but it must also carry an offer of dialogue that pragmatic forces in Iran would not refuse.

There was talk of possible bilateral contacts with the US, which, if successful, would have ended almost three decades of hostile relations. Today, Iran s enrichment program is going ahead despite the United Nations Security Council s warnings of new sanctions, while Iranian officials publicly ridicule threats of US military action.

Policymakers must enforce criminal sanctions against these practices.

The Customs Act applies civil and criminal penalties to breaches of export controls.

(f) Judicial and administrative sanctions against persons liable for the violations

He argues that an example should be made of State officials found guilty of torture.