Arash Aramesh

The fourth round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran cleared the UN Security Council June 9 without opposition from any permanent members with veto power. High-ranking Iranian officials and pro-government media outlets have reacted very harshly to the resolution and warned the West about the potential consequences.

According to ISNA, the Iranian Student News Agency, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is on an official visit to Tajikistan, said, “This resolution is worthless to the Iranian people.” He added, “Those who posses nuclear bombs and have used them in the past, and continue to stockpile such weapons and make threats against other countries, are now passing resolutions against us left and right with the excuse that Iran might one day start to build nuclear bombs.”

He asserted, “This resolution is worthless to the Iranian people and I sent a message to one of them that the resolution you are passing is like a soiled cloth that should be thrown in the garbage can.”

According to Fars news, a semi-official news agency with intimate ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki said the new resolution was like “taking a step backward” and asserted, “On the chess board [of diplomacy], our moves were based on cooperation and confidence building and that was the declaration in Tehran.” Mottaki told the world to “Expect Iran’s next move in response to the passage of the resolution.”

Mohammad Khazaie, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, said, “Passing the resolution would change the natural path of mutual cooperation.” Khazaie argued that the trilateral declaration reached in Tehran on May 16 was an important confidence building step taken by Iran that was ignored by the West.

Meanwhile, the IRIB, Iran’s state-run radio and television broadcasting, reported on today’s developments emphasizing Turkey and Brazil’s “No” votes to the resolution. An Iranian analyst, who appeared on the news channel ‘Khabar’, said that Turkish and Brazilian diplomats were trying really hard to dissuade other members from voting for the resolution even minutes before voting began at the UN.

Pro-government sources have played down the importance of new sanctions against Iran claiming that these sanctions are not going to be effective. Raja, a website close to the office of President Ahmadinejad, rejected Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claim that these sanctions were the toughest yet to be imposed on Iran and said those comments are just “political bluffs.”

In recent months, the government of President Ahmadinejad has tried to avoid the imposition of new sanctions on Iran’s weak and fragile economy. Iran presumed that the trilateral declaration reached with Turkey and Brazil would at the very least slow down the process of imposing new sanctions and would buy more time from the West. Iran’s past behaviors, and Ahmadinejad’s hostile attitude towards the West, coupled with his irresponsible rhetoric, however, have proved to be major obstacles on the path of confidence building.

Iran had previously warned that it would no longer honor the trilateral agreement reached in Iran if new UN sanctions are imposed. Iranian parliament’s recent move to “reconsider its ties with the IAEA” if sanctions are imposed must be taken seriously by the West. Iran’s severing its ties to the IAEA, and potentially leaving the NPT, could have disastrous consequences and would embolden the idea of military strikes against Iran.