The comprehensive sanctions that were imposed by the UN Security Council on Iran two days ago will hurt the regime in Tehran, especially its ‘Revolutionary Guard' wing. However, it may also benefit the other senior figures in the regime, and this was probably intended. The decline in the influence of the Revolutionary Guard over the Iranian scene may enable the Iranian opposition to raise its head and start again with renewed momentum. However, strengthening the wing of the Mullahs within the regime runs the risk of cutting off the road for the reformists, although the prevailing view is that the reformists in the opposition are part of the regime which they want to reform. But the calculations related to division within the one country are not confined to Iran. What happened in the five-month march towards the UN Security Council's adoption of the sanctions was a ‘symphony' of divisions that started in China and then between China and the major Western countries in the Security Council, and culminated with the stunning scene of the vote within the Lebanese Council of Ministers, as it voted over what instructions should be given to the Lebanese delegation at the Security Council, and which ended in a 14/14 tie. Even Turkey was not spared the embarrassment of division, as its foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu instructed the delegation in New York to abstain on the resolution; however, at the 11th hour, orders came from the Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan to vote against the resolution. This followed a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Turkey, where he told Erdogan that the ‘divergence' in the voting between Brazil and Turkey would undermine the Tehran Declaration, which they signed with the Iranian leadership. Under this agreement, Iran accepted to ship a certain amount of its uranium for enrichment abroad, before being returned as nuclear fuel for civilian uses. However, Iran insisted on continuing to enrich uranium locally to the 20 percent threshold. Meanwhile, the Brazilian President Lula da Silva decided to leap over the division inside his country regarding his approach of the Iranian issue and the ensuing risk that Brazil's relationship with the five major countries might falter or chill. For personal reasons, the Brazilian president decided that his interests lie in voting against the resolution, dragging along with him Erdogan to a similar stance at the suggestion – or threats – of Ahmadinejad. In contrast with the divisions within the ten elected members of the Security Council and the three countries which did not vote in favour of the sanctions, the U.S President scored a major achievement in mustering the consensus of China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France. This is because despite the fact that Russia and China have huge stakes in Iran, they agreed to a new round of sanctions that is by far the harshest and most comprehensive set of sanctions imposed on any country, including North Korea. What is also interesting here is that the five major countries in addition to Germany are united when it comes to the sanctions, with a view to persuade Iran to respond to the incentives of the negotiations option, while promising Tehran to suspend the sanctions should it comply with the demands of freezing its enrichment of uranium. But Brazil and Turkey are playing a dangerous game in their quest to highlight their regional and international weight and as two elected members of the UN Security Council, by breaching the consensus of the five major nuclear powers in order to break it. This gives a wrong and dangerous impression to Iran and encourages Tehran to defiance, intransigence, and betting on divisions – albeit to no avail. This is because the sanctions resolution is binding for all states including Turkey, Brazil and Lebanon, and these countries will be under strict observation and accountability if they violate the sanctions regime against Iran. For instance, there are mechanisms including a sanctions committee and a team of experts to monitor the compliance by all states with the terms of the resolution, which allow visits to countries suspected of supplying weapons or facilitating the smuggling of weapons to or from Iran, or receiving banned weapons from the latter, and carrying out investigations and submitting results to the Security Council in order to hold any violators accountable. Lebanon, for instance, will be under further scrutiny. Through its fourth rounds of comprehensive sanctions, the Security Council banned the export and import of conventional weapons to and from Iran. It also prohibited states from providing financial services including insurance and reinsurance or transfer of assets and funds and other services to the Iranian territories, from or through these states' own territories “if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that such services, assets or resources could contribute to Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities”. Because there are individuals and parties in Lebanon such as Hezbollah which have close ties with Iran in various fields, Lebanon is under close observation more than other nations. Lebanon will thus be subject to closer monitoring in what concerns the various relationships between its citizens and Iran, especially with the Revolutionary Guard. Among other things, Lebanon will be observed and held accountable when individuals within it receive banned weapons or when they smuggle any weapons through it into Iran, and also when they conduct financial transactions – noting that the resolution has restrained Iran's banking and financial transactions. Turkey is also under scrutiny, but from another standpoint, which is what is required of Iran's immediate neighbours – by air, land and sea. The new sanctions require countries to take further measures in their airports, ports and borders, and give some countries the authority to intercept suspected vessels leaving or bound for Iran, in order to conduct search operations in international waters if there is information that the vessel is carrying prohibited items – and this effectively imposes a sea, land and air blockade on Iran. Even though Turkey voted against the sanctions, it is obligated under international law to fully implement the terms of the resolution like any other member state of the United Nations. The most important Iranian achievement, however, may lie in the fact that Turkey departed from the consensus in NATO, to which Turkey politically belongs, and also in Turkey's ‘leadership' of the campaign of objection to the sanctions in the Muslim world and the Middle East. However, from a security and economic standpoint, Turkey did not, and will not announce that it will refrain from complying with resolution 1929, as it would not deliberately and openly violate the binding resolutions of the UN Security Council. The rift within the ranks of government in Turkey will not develop into a decision of violating international resolutions, no matter how much Erdogan retaliates in order to gain the credentials of Islamic ‘leadership'. And no matter how close the Turkish-Iranian relations become or appear to be an alliance, Turkey does not want Iran to possess nuclear weapons, while Iran realizes that what Erdogan is doing is an attempt to win over the Islamic public opinion and seize the Iranian leadership of the Palestinian cause. It is a complex relationship between two countries attempting to well position themselves in the balance of Islamic leadership and the balance of powers in the Middle East. In the meantime, the Iranian policy has led to further isolation for Tehran and to the harshest international sanctions by far, through both UN Security Council resolutions and individual and regional sanctions that will cripple Iran more and more after the EU and the United States approve them. Meanwhile, the Turkish policy currently led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan risks a big adventure at the level of Turkish-European relations, as well as at the level of Turkish-American relations. Such stances take a different meaning and direction when it comes to a nuclear question, and also when Turkey attempts to split the five major countries in the Security Council, and when Turkey acts as though it is more ‘apt' than Russia which failed to convince Tehran of what Turkey succeeded to do. What will happen subsequently to these relations, and how will Turkey act in the Security Council when the Iranian nuclear issue is back on the table there? There are only two precedents, which are Indonesia's abstention from voting once, and Qatar's negative vote against sanctions when it was representing the Arab world in the Security Council. What happened was that Qatar alone voted against the resolution in 2006, then voted with (and did not abstain) when the Security Council approved a round of sanctions that were stronger than the previous one. In other words, Qatar has moved from being against to being with [the sanctions]. As an aside, although Lebanon's vote was well conceived, it explained its choice rather poorly in a sentence that appeared as though it was forcefully appended to the instructions from the Council of Minister. The latter convened for a public vote over the instructions of how to vote on the sanctions, but it soon became divided. Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations Nawaf Salam said before the Security Council: “The government of my country studied the issue of the important vote before us today. As no final position has yet materialized at the moment of our meeting, Lebanon will abstain from the vote”. There was no need to voluntarily show Lebanon with its Council of Ministers and leaders to be a non cohesive country before the Security Council. It was possible to conduct a private vote and not issue instructions to the ambassador at the UN to make such a precedent – the precedent of establishing the impression that there is a local division in Lebanon in the Security Council, in a public session being watched by the whole world. There was no need for Lebanon to act as though it is a country that fails to agree on one position, at a time when it was possible instead to record its abstention from the vote as a well-thought political position that has its justifications and arguments. But what happened instead is that the world deplored, mocked and laughed at such behaviour, even though the Lebanese delegation to the United Nations has acted since it received its seat at the Security Council with much professionalism and gained the respect and appreciation for Lebanon's political positions and circumstances. There was no need for all of this. At any rate, the local uproar regarding the Lebanese vote and its ramifications is truly inconsequential in what regards the Iranian-international relations. What is being closely watched by the international community instead is the first anniversary of the Iranian elections tomorrow, to see the internal Iranian reactions to the sanctions. Namely, what is being anticipated is the answer to the basic question that is splitting politicians and experts: will the sanctions on Iran lead to further popular support for the regime and divisions in the opposition in the latter's favour? Or will the popular reaction to these sanctions be considering them a necessary approach to weaken the regime, in particular to break the spine of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard that dominate power in Iran at present? This is the question that will soon be answered by the quality and size of the demonstrations that will march on the anniversary of the elections, which imposed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president despite its results, and unleashed the uprising inside Iran. The tug of war has already started at another level, following the consensus of China, Russia, Europe and the United States over the harshest sanctions regime yet against Iran, while keeping the door open to Iran to return to negotiations and suspend the sanctions. The Iranian leadership has thus repeatedly crippled itself in dealing with this issue. This time, it tied up its own hands when Ahmadinejad embarrassed Erdogan in the name of keeping the Tehran Declaration alive, in order to build on diplomatic solutions. As a result, Ahmadinejad has denied himself the capability of avenging the sanctions resolution.
