Hegemony Challenged: Turkey and Brazil Take on The United States and the UN Security Council Over Iran
The unfolding drama of the Brazil-Turkey nuclear deal and the Obama Administration's reactive push to move a draft sanctions resolution in the United Nations Security Council will have profound effects on the character of international relations for years to come. At least two such effects warrant particular attention.
First, for those in official Washington or anywhere else who still doubt that the "post-American world" is here, the deal to refuel the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) brokered by Brazil and Turkey should serve as a blaring wake-up call. Two rising economic powers from what we used to call the "Third World" have now asserted decisive political influence on a high-profile international security issue. And, in doing so, they have signaled that Washington can no longer unilaterally define terms for managing such issues. As a consequence, President Obama's most serious foreign policy challenge--repairing America's image as a global leader--just got more daunting. Second, by answering Brazil and Turkey's extraordinary diplomatic effort with an arrogant assertion of the P-5's power to demand the rapid imposition of new sanctions on Iran and reinstating a demand that Iran must suspend enrichment to avoid new sanctions, the Obama Administration is following a course that could inflict serious damage not only on America's global standing, but also on the legitimacy of the Security Council itself.
As we have noted previously on TheRaceForIran.com, getting P-5 agreement on a substantially watered down and incomplete draft resolution is not the same as ensuring the requisite nine affirmative votes for it. But, even if Washington is able to ram new sanctions through a deeply divided Council, that course carries huge long-term risks. Already, Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan is questioning the Council's "credibility" to deal with the Iranian nuclear issue. If Washington torpedoes the new nuclear deal before it can be tested, expect Turkey, Brazil, and others to intensify this sort of challenge to the Council's legitimacy--with support not just from Iran but from a broad range of "non-aligned" countries.
The Obama Administration has only itself to blame for this situation, because it has approached--and is still approaching--the Iranian nuclear issue with unilateral hubris worthy of George W. Bush. The Administration has continued to insist that Iran cannot indigenously enrich uranium, even as part of a broader nuclear deal. It took what should have been a straightforward technical discussion on refueling the TRR--a thoroughly safeguarded facility in the middle of Tehran that produces medical isotopes--and turned it into a highly politicized effort to exchange most of Iran's low-enriched uranium for promises of new fuel at some unspecified point in the future. Washington then demanded that other countries unquestioningly support these positions. When rising powers like Brazil, Turkey, and China were reluctant to go along, the Administration thought it could browbeat them into submission. (...)
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