UN's latest sanctions could prove very costly for Iran

Washington, June 10 (ANI): Most analysts have said that the fresh sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council will prove diplomatically and financially costly to Tehran, as it continues its quest for nuclear power status.

"Is this going to change Iran's behavior? In the short term? no. But what the resolution has the potential to do, especially given the Russian and Chinese votes [in favor], is change the calculations in Tehran over the value of pursuing their nuclear program in the manner they've chosen," the Christian Science Monitor quotes Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, as saying.

"These are not the crippling sanctions that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had promised about a year ago," says James Lindsay, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

"The end result," he adds in a commentary on the resolution, "is that the high-stakes game of chicken over Iran's nuclear program will continue."

Melissa Labonte, an international relations expert at Fordham University, calls the resolution "pure window-dressing," and adds that they are "unlikely to bring Iran to the negotiating table and probably won't stop the Iranians from developing military nuclear capacity."

Just how much time the international community has for diplomacy to alter Iran's nuclear ambitions will remain a hotly debated question, but the image of a window still open for a diplomatic solution was repeatedly employed in Western capitals Wednesday. (ANI)