IN ANNOUNCING new sanctions against an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, Bush administration officials took pains last week to offer assurances that at least for now, the United States is not going to war with Iran.
"We do not believe that conflict is inevitable," said Nicholas Burns, under-secretary of state for political affairs. "This decision supports the diplomacy and in no way does it anticipate the use of force."
The move designated the Quds force of
the Revolutionary Guard and four state-owned Iranian banks as supporters of terrorism, and the Guard itself as an illegal exporter of ballistic missiles.
The decision thus raised the temperature in American's ongoing confrontation with Iran over terrorism and nuclear weapons. But it also reflected some caution by an administration that has accused the Quds force of aiding Shi'ite militia attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, and has even detained some Quds force members there, but has so far resisted calls for retaliatory strikes inside Iran.
"This is a warning shot across the bow, not that the US is going to invade Iran. But Iran has pushed the level of escalation, particularly inside Iraq, to unacceptable levels," said Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the influential Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
"In many ways this kind of warning is more a demonstration of restraint than a signal that we're going to war."
Still, after 18 months in which the administration has touted the virtues of collective action against Iran by the US and its allies, the sanctions mark a major turn toward unilateralism.
The shift represents a tacit acknowledgment that the diplomatic strategy pressed most vigorously by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been ineffective.
The Bush administration hopes to enlist allies around the world in its new, tougher stance - in part because the US, having maintained its own stiff sanctions against Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979, doesn't have much leverage left itself. The administration hopes its influence can turn Iran into a political and economic pariah.
The sanctions will "provide a powerful deterrent to every international bank and company that thinks of doing business with the Iranian government", Rice said.
Yet officials acknowledged that past attempts to enlist allies in limiting their business ties to Iran have come up short. In each instance, they acknowledged, some other countries have partly offset the sanctions.
China, for instance, has increased trade with Iran in the past year, Burns said. And analysts pointed out that Russian, Indian, European and even Canadian companies continue to do business with many different sectors of the Iranian economy, particularly its oil and natural gas industries.
Rice said that US officials would continue to work with their European, Russian and Chinese counterparts to formulate a new set of UN Security Council sanctions to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
But she also said she would be willing to "meet with my Iranian counterpart anytime, anywhere", as long as Iran first suspended its nuclear activities.
But the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has so far shown no sign that it is remotely interested in complying with the Security Council demand that it suspend its uranium enrichment.
The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards dismissed the possibility of a US military action against Iran and warned that his forces would respond with an "even more decisive" strike if attacked. In Tehran, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry shrugged off Washington's announcement, saying America's hostile policies ran counter to international regulations and were "doomed to fail".
He said the US produced nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and had supported what he called terrorist groups. He called the Bush administration's accusation that Iran was arming Shi'ite militias in Iraq "ridiculous".
Israel, a major target of Ahmedinejad's rhetoric, welcomed the announcement. Sallai Meridor, Israel's ambassador to Washington, called it "a major diplomatic step in the effort to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons which threaten international peace and security".
The full article contains 667 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
