Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator from Florida: Published Column: A Strategy for Reigning in Iran

A newly elected leader takes office and, because of his remarks about the Holocaust, becomes immediately controversial. Other nations condemn the leader’s views, and move to isolate his country.

Iran in 2005? No - Austria in 1999.

When Austria’s far-right Freedom Party emerged with enough votes to join the governing coalition in the 1999 elections, attention immediately focused on party leader Jeorg Haidar. Haidar had a history of praising Hitler and various Nazi policies, and was the leading voice of his party’s anti-immigrant positions.

Austrian voters quickly discovered that their choice had consequences. Britain, Germany, France and Austria’s other European Union partners imposed diplomatic sanctions, including cutting off bilateral political contacts, downgrading the status of Austrian ambassadors in their capitals and opposing Austrian candidates for positions in international groups. The EU stated its intention to maintain sanctions while the Freedom Party sat in the government.

The message was received: Haidar was stripped of party leadership and deprived of any cabinet post. While the Freedom Party remained in the coalition, the Austrian government distanced itself from the party’s hard-line positions; and, marginalized it to the point where they performed poorly in the 2002 elections.

Today, governments across Europe, Russia and even the Arab world are condemning statements by Iran’s new president, Mohammed Ahmadinejad, who recently called for Israel to be wiped off the map and declared that the genocide of European Jewry in the Holocaust was a myth.

And while the U.S. already imposes tough sanctions on Iran, Europe imposes no such severe constraints. Unlike with Austria, no ambassadors have been recalled. No relations have been downgraded. No sanctions have been imposed.

Iran is not Austria, and downgrading diplomatic ties would not necessarily moderate Iran as it did Austria. But shouldn’t the same rules apply? If certain statements and policies are unacceptable in Austria, why should they be deemed permissible if they happen in the Muslim world? The failure to back up words of condemnation with action risks sending just that message – and, at the precisely the wrong time.

The Iranian leader’s statements coincide with the latest round of talks scheduled for later this month between Iran and European Union representatives on Iran’s domestic nuclear program.

Meantime, credible estimates, including those of the International Atomic Energy Agency, indicate Iran is alarmingly close to acquiring nuclear weapons. A government that openly calls for the annihilation of one of its neighbors cannot be allowed to possess the most deadly weapon of mass destruction.

The U.S. made a huge blunder last month when it agreed to a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to convert uranium in Iran and have it sent to Russia for enrichment. Besides giving legitimacy to Iran’s uranium conversion – a crucial step in making nuclear bombs -- the real damage was that it delayed for critical months the referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council for a vote on binding economic sanctions. Now such a referral is unlikely earlier than March.

We can’t wait that long. We need a three-pronged strategy right now in response to Iran’s provocations.

First, European governments should make clear to Iran there can’t be business as usual as long as Ahmadinejad, or others who espouse his radical views, hold high office. European ambassadors should be withdrawn from Iran, and their Iranian counterparts sent home. And Iran should be excluded from participating in a range of international forums. The U.S. needs to press its European allies to take these steps, as they are unlikely to do on their own.

Second, the U.S. needs to press for stiff multilateral sanctions aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear program. The U.N. Security Council is the first choice, but if Russian and Chinese opposition makes that untenable, the U.S. should tell the EU-3 ( Britain, France and Germany ) the time has come for them to join us in imposing economic pain on Iran. Trade sanctions, freezing assets and an embargo on refined petroleum, which Iran imports, would get the Iranians’ attention.

Third, there still are measures the U.S. can take alone to increase pressure on Tehran. Chief among these is to squeeze Hezbollah, Iran’s primary tool for projecting its influence around the Middle East. Now that Lebanon has been freed from the Syrian yoke, the U.S. should insist, with the threat of aid cutoffs, that the Lebanese government deploys its army to southern Lebanon and disarm the Hezbollah militias that conduct raids against Israel.

The U.S. also can intensify its efforts to stop Hezbollah from broadcasting its message of hate around the world via its satellite television station, al-Manar. The U.S. Treasury Department should place al-Manar on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list to help choke off the funding that keeps it on the air.

The Iranian people do not want to be treated as international outcasts. The regime there wants to survive. A combination of diplomatic isolation, economic pain and pressure on Iran’s partners just might cause Tehran to rein in its radical rhetoric and dangerous policies.

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