Word: china
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Could the U.S. block sales of refined gasoline to Iran as a way of ratcheting up pressure on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime? That's a prospect U.S. politicians have talked up for months. But as the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China prepare for crucial talks with Iran in Geneva on Oct. 1, there's a growing realization that the strategy might not work. "The hype around blocking gas is hugely overdone," says Richard Dalton, who was British ambassador to Iran until 2006 and is now an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. "People...
...officials believe going after oil imports may still be worth it. Rather than passing laws or attempting to push new sanctions through the U.N. Security Council - where Russia and China could veto them - officials are quietly approaching companies directly, convincing executives that the cost of doing business with Iran has become too high. In the past few months, Washington has leaned on insurance companies that underwrite Iran's shipments abroad and as many as 80 banks that handle financial transactions for the country. In January, the U.S. slapped a $350 million fine on Britain's Lloyds TSB Bank for funneling...
...that Iran has been secretly building an underground uranium-enrichment facility may have raised expectations that this week's Geneva talks would be a kind of high-noon showdown. Instead, the meeting on Oct. 1 between Iran's nuclear negotiator and representatives of the Western powers and Russia and China is more likely to be the opening exchange of a tortuous conversation that will continue for months...
...precarious domestic political position - suggests that Tehran's strategy will be to engage in a way that offers hope of progress, but ambiguously and on terms more limited than those sought by the West. Its goal will be to avert confrontation and divide the Western powers from Russia and China. As Ray Takeyh, former adviser to Obama's Iran point man Dennis Ross, wrote in the Washington Post on Sept. 27, "At this week's talks, Iran's representatives are likely to subtly hint of cooperation to come - but only if talks continue. However, such gestures do not mean Iran...
...Administration may have little option but to play the diplomatic game, because its "or else" options are so limited. Russia and China remain deeply skeptical of the case for sanctions and are unlikely to approve measures with significant bite. What's more, Israeli and American hawks have long argued that no sanctions will prompt a regime that has invested so much in developing a nuclear program to simply reverse course; rather, they see the choices as boiling down to one between military strikes and accepting a nuclear-armed Iran. But military strikes are opposed by the Pentagon for two reasons...