The first is that acknowledging Russia and China’s unwillingness to help would strike the most powerful blow yet to Obama’s central foreign-policy message: that his personality and eagerness for engagement would open up doors for America that were slammed shut by the Bush administration’s alleged arrogance and quickness to go to war. Acknowledging that the Security Council will never allow strong sanctions would be tantamount to admitting that the very logic and premises of Obama’s foreign policy is flawed. Thus, this isn’t really about Iran. It’s about the politics of failure and Obama’s increasingly desperate attempt to shield his presidency from the hard realities of the world. ~Noah Pollak

Via Scoblete

It’s true that Russia and China have no intention of supporting new sanctions on Iran. I have been saying this for well over a year. This is one reason why “crippling” sanctions will never be effective. The Chinese will work to fill the void that other states leave behind, and the pressure the sanctions are meant to impose will never come about. The “crippling” sanctions favored by many Iran hawks are an unworkable option. Notice that Pollak fails to say anything about this.

What I have also said is that trying to build a coalition to support sanctions will not work because too many other states don’t share U.S. objectives and most simply don’t care about Iran’s nuclear program. Many are like Brazil, which is building an economic relationship with Iran and officially accepts Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is peaceful. Another reason these other states don’t share U.S. objectives is that those objectives are unrealistic and unreachable. This has always been the problem behind Obama’s “engagement” policy, which has had precious little to do with actually engaging Iran in a sustained way. Obama wanted to change the means the U.S. used to pursue the same unreachable end, namely the elimination or severe limitation of Iran’s nuclear program. What the administration and its hawkish critics have been unable to see is that it is the end, not the means, that needs to be changed. Acknowledging this would force Iran hawks to admit that pretty much everything they have said about Iran policy has been wrong.