Whose National Interest

While I was traveling around China a few weeks ago, a number of events took place related to the situation in the Middle East and its neighbors. These included the Israeli attack on the Gaza bound aid flotilla which resulted in the deaths of 9 people including one American, the startup of so called “proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the US full court press for sanctions on Iran.

These stories were available in China, but were not front page news. The Chinese press was more focused on floods and labor unrest. The Chinese government’s squabble with Google made it inconvenient to access Google related web sites to post comments so I’m going to rehash some old news here.

The US high pressure effort to get the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council on board for a new sanctions resolution on Iran was successful and the new resolution passed with only Turkey and Brazil voting against and Lebanon abstaining.

It is reasonably clear why China and Russia might support sanctions. The Chinese government is not going to do anything that is against Chinese national interest. In the case of Iran, China values its economic ties with the West and the sanctions have been so watered down that they will not affect China’s economic relations with Iran. Russia also values its economic ties with the West and any action that might disrupt Iran’s natural gas industry would enhance Russia’s monopoly position on gas supplies to Europe.

What is less clear is why Europe and the US would support sanctions. As noted above, one possible outcome is that Europe will be even more dependent on Russian natural gas and will be more exposed to being held hostage to supply cutoffs resulting from Russian pricing disagreements with Ukraine or Belarus.

The US is engaged in two intractable conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why the US would want to escalate its confrontation with Iran at a time when it needs Iranian cooperation in order to stabilize these situations, is unclear to me. The stated purpose is to stop Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. However, CIA Director Leon Panetta recently said on ABC "Will it (sanctions) deter them (Iran) from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability? Probably not.”

China’s policy is to defend its own national interest, whereas the US seems to persist in taking actions in the Middle East that are not in its national interest. It seems to me that China will be more successful.