The Times of London, which has a spotty record in much of its reporting, claims to have obtained documents indicating that Iran may have begun working on a nuclear weapon as early as 2007. The widely respected David Albright, former inspector for the IAEA, was quoted saying that if the story is true than it “It looks bad — there is no doubt about it.” If confirmed, this story should strengthen the Administration’s efforts to build a coordinated international sanctions regime in response to Iran. Unfortunately, there is every likelihood that this report will be used by leaders on the Hill to push through a counterproductive sanctions bill that, instead of strengthening international resolve, will weaken it.

In the midst of its efforts to engage Iran, the Administration has been working simultaneously to build a unified international approach toward Iran – something that was sorely lacking during the Bush administration. These efforts appear to have paid dividends, as there now exists a pretty clear consensus between the US and Europe on dealing with Iran and there is even some mild optimism that Russia may support come on board as well. In the last week the European Union, France, the UK and the Obama administration all released nearly identical statements on Iran. Additionally, last month 25 countries, including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council voted to censure Iran at the IAEA for its lack of transparency on the nuclear issue. In an interview with the Middle East Bulletin, Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment, noted:

In contrast to the Bush administration, I think the Europeans, and even the Russians and Chinese, recognize that since Obama’s inauguration last June the United States has made numerous overtures to Iran, made a good-faith diplomatic effort to change the tone and context of the U.S.-Iran relationship, but Tehran was either unable or unwilling to reciprocate. For this reason the Obama administration is in a much better position to attain a robust international sanctions regime than the Bush administration was.

Despite the formation of a multilateral consensus, the US Congress now seems determined to screw things up by imposing unilateral sanctions. The sanctions bills marauding through the House and Senate threaten to undercut this international consensus. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius who participated in an Iran gaming scenario game put on by Harvard reached this conclusion as well:

The Obama team was confounded by congressional demands for unilateral U.S. sanctions against companies involved in Iran’s energy sector. This shot at Iran ended up backfiring, since some of the key companies were from Russia and China — the very nations whose support the United States needs for strong U.N. sanctions. The Russians and Chinese were so offended that they began negotiating with Tehran behind America’s back.

One of the chief problems with the effort by Congress is that for sanctions on Iran to be effective they have to have broad international backing, because the US on its own does not have enough leverage to make much of an impact. David Herbert of the National Journal described one of the major problems with Congress’ efforts to put in place gasoline sanctions last month:

It’s unclear whether the legislation will be enough to dissuade Iran’s main suppliers — Royal Dutch Shell, France’s Total, China’s state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp. and Russia’s Lukoil, among others — from continuing to import gasoline. Tehran has said it will cut off any company that complies with U.S. sanctions, a threat that will keep some companies in line. And even if some gasoline exports to Iran can be curtailed, Russia and Venezuela have the excess refining capacity to plug the gap.

In other words, the sanctions bills pushed by Congress will likely backfire. Not only will they undercut the Green Movement, as Matt Duss notes, but by upsetting the delicate international consensus that currently exists on Iran, this legislation if enacted will in the end only leave Iran less isolated. In this sense, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard could not have written an oped more favorable to their interests this morning than the one penned by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinan.

Via Laura Rozen, an article about Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, and the various measures he’s been developing to apply pressure on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards:

While the Revolutionary Guards pretend to be the incorruptible shield of the Islamic Revolution, individual commanders are believed to be wealthy private investors, especially in neighboring countries like Dubai. “What will cause the Guards their demise is their corruption,” an Iranian intelligence official told NEWSWEEK on condition that his name not be used. “For the past 20 years, they’ve been allowed by the Supreme Leader and consecutive governments to make money in a shadowy world.” The West’s new approach, Levey indicated, is to focus on the IRGC as “the face of repression,” thereby supporting democracy activists in Iran without arousing Iranian national pride over their nuclear program.

The plan is for Levey’s office to publicly identify “dozens” of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps front companies and then pressure suppliers and trading partners to cut off ties — or risk being sanctioned by the U.S. government, says the senior administration official. “There will be a big effort by Stuart to work with like-minded countries to target IRGC front companies,” the official says. “We know which ones [the IRGC] are affiliated with and we know which ones they control.” Levey says he wants to make the foreign firms understand that “if they’re dealing with Iran it’s nearly impossible to protect themselves from being entangled in that country’s illicit conduct.”

Levey’s calibrated approach can be understood an extension of President Obama’s engagement strategy, which, even as it has been derided by hawkish conservatives as “naive,” has succeeded where the Bush administration failed in focusing international attention on the Iranian regime as the recalcitrant party, and is thus far more likely to produce the international consensus necessary for multilateral sanctions that could actually work to change the regime’s behavior. As Levey told the Senate Banking Committee in October, his goal was “to make sure that we maximize the chance of getting international support for these things because… if we do not have international support, that there’ll be diversions. There’ll be work-arounds, and the efficacy of the sanctions will not nearly be as effective.”

Contrast Levey’s approach to the huffing and puffing of Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

The regime in Tehran knows only hardball, and nothing less than overwhelming and crippling sanctions could produce a reversal of its threatening programs and policies.

That is why the United States must be prepared to act alone, if necessary, and with every weapon in its political and economic arsenal. The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act [IRPSA] is one such tool. This legislation, which I coauthored, has the support of more than 300 members of the House, and it is urgent that this bill reaches the president’s desk before the end of the year. It targets one of Iran’s major weaknesses — namely, its dependency on foreign gasoline and other refined petroleum products. By placing financial sanctions on U.S. and foreign companies providing these crucial resources, Iran’s economic lifeline would be severed and its already weak economy would crumble.

There are few, if any, analysts — on either the right or left — who think that last statement is actually true. As analyst Gal Luft wrote in Foreign Policy that “Iran is much less vulnerable to gasoline sanctions than is commonly believed on Capitol Hill, and its foreign gasoline dependence is dropping by the day.” Under President Ahmadinejad, Iran has both increased its refining capacity and enacted a more effective petrol rationing program, both of which have, according to Luft, have “slashed Iran’s need to import petroleum products.” A report from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute concluded that “the imposition of sanctions might generate no significant change in Iranian policy in the short term,” and that “the group that should be the target of strengthened sanctions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is least likely to be affected.”

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen also writes that, in addition to IRPSA, the U.S. should also “offer our full support to the Iranian people and increase funding for Iran democracy programs.” But members of Iran’s pro-democracy Green movement have condemned the very sanctions Ros-Lehtinen is pushing for, arguing that they would hurt the Iranian while doing little to affect the regime. In an interview with the Washington Times, Iranian dissident Mohsen Makhmalbaf specifically “rejected proposed U.S. legislation that would target gasoline imports to Iran, saying that would hurt average people.” In September, Green movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said sanctions “will impose agonies on a nation who suffers enough from miserable statesmen.” It’s hard to take seriously the claim of IRPSA proponents to support Iranian democracy activists when those activists have specifically condemned IRPSA. Not only would these sanctions be ineffective at actually changing Iran’s behavior, they would offer Iran’s hardliners a propaganda lifeline right at the moment that the conservative consensus around Ahmadinejad is starting to crack up.

This weekend, Human Events posted an offensive parody of the famous Christmas song, “Feliz Navidad,” entitled “Illegal Aliens In My Yard.” Besides repeatedly referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegals,” a term that’s considered pejorative and offensive by immigrants rights organizations, the song primarily focuses on spreading false and hateful stereotypes about Latinos who are portrayed as bug-carrying invalids:

Illegals in my yard.
Illegals in my yard.
Illegals in my yard.
Sixteen arrive in a stolen car[...]

They’re getting free organ transplants this Christmas.
They’re going to have anchor babies this Christmas.
They’re going to scream “sí, se puede” this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard[...]

They’re going to spread bubonic plague this Christmas.
They’re going to bring me lots of bed bugs this Christmas.
They’re going to pass tuberculosis this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard.

Listen:

The spoof is one of the many creations produced by Talk Radio Network’s Matt Fox and AJ Rice’s “The Fox and Rice Experience.” Their low-brow repertoire also includes “Sasha Obama’s Big Mouth,” a voiced-over conversation between President Obama and his daughter that features the tagline: “when procreation goes horribly wrong.” Another Christmas melody, “We’re Beginning to Look A Lot like Marxists,” was posted last week.

Talk Radio Network is home to right-wing, anti-immigrant shock jocks Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, and many more.

(HT: Right Wing Watch)