Gibbs: Spring sanctions goal still stands

As the summer nears, a top White House official said that
President Barack Obama’s goal of getting United Nations sanctions in place for Iran
this spring is still the goal.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told The Hill late last week that Obama’s
late-March pledge to get sanctions in place “in weeks,” or “this
spring,” is “still operable.”

{mosads}Both China and Russia, the U.N.
Security Council’s biggest obstacles to sanctions, have signaled in
recent weeks a willingness to sign on to sanctions, even as leaders
from those two countries are openly skeptical about how effective
sanctions can be.

But sanctions may be softened to be amenable to the two veto-wielders at the Security Council and not stiff enough for lawmakers, who have ramped up the pressure on the White House in recent weeks.

Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) sent a letter
to Obama on April 19 with 366 House signatures calling on the president
to “fulfill your June 2008 pledge that you would do ‘everything in my
power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon'” and urging
Obama to use whatever presidential powers at his means to impose
“punishing measures” on Tehran.

The letter, of which there was also a similar Senate version spearheaded by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.),
also asks the president to “rapidly” implement the sanctions
legislation — passed in December by the House and the following month
by the Senate — when it comes out of conference.

Lawmakers
have a non-binding goal of wrapping up conference work by May 28.

Iran’s leaders have shown no indication that they intend to abandon
their nuclear plans. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a speech
at the U.N. in New York City last week in which he accused the U.S. of
being a bully.

Ahmadinejad did not in any way suggest that his country would alter
its nuclear plans, which he insists are for peaceful, energy purposes.

After that speech, Gibbs said that the Iranian president’s remarks were “predictable.”

On Sunday, Ahmadinejad said that the U.S. couldn’t accomplish anything in the Middle East without Iran on its side, and said sanctions would prove inefficient.

“They themselves know that resolutions do not leave any impact on the Iranian nation,” Ahmadinejad said.

Administration officials say the U.S. and the other permanent
members of the Security Council are continuing to make progress on
drafting and implementing those sanctions.

One senior
administration official said that the U.S. is pursuing sanctions at the U.N. with the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany “urgently,” and that pursuit has been constructive.

The official said that preventing a nuclear Iran is a “top priority” for the president, and he takes that threat “seriously.”

“Our
efforts to build a strong consensus with the international community to
isolate Iran, as well as our efforts to strengthen the capacity of our
regional partners, reflect that seriousness. We continue to tighten
enforcement of U.S. sanctions, and P5+1 discussions continue urgently on
a new sanctions resolution, and have been very constructive.”