College Republican Federation of Virginia

At a meeting of its foreign ministers on Monday, the European Union failed to adopt any new sanctions against Iran for its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. With the Bush Administration enacting tough new sanctions against Iran and its Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force last week, EU officials remained deeply divided over exactly how harshly to sanction Iran.

EU countries, particularly Iran’s largest trading partner Germany, have been reluctant to impose serious sanctions against the Iranians for a variety of reasons, most of them economic. States such as Italy and Austria prefer to wait for U.N. Security Council (UNSC) action, which may not come until January 2008. Others, notably France and Britain, favor adopting Bush’s sanctions regardless of any UNSC decision.

Despite further demonstrating the EU’s failure as a coherent international actor, these divisions are incredibly counterproductive given the gravity of the issue. EU governments also seem to be divided over whether or not to “confuse” the issues of Iranian nuclear ambition and Iran’s sponsorship of terror. This too is ridiculous. The issue is not simply Iran’s nuclear weapons development, but rather Iran’s continued violation of international norms. Both its illegal nuclear program and decades-long support for terrorism are but symptoms of one disease, Iran’s long-held view that it can continually violate international standards of state conduct without repercussion.

If the EU is actually serious about being a meaningful international actor then it must be willing to sacrifice to enforce international standards. America is providing the leadership Europe has begged for, it is time the EU put its money where its mouth is and hold up their end of the bargain. The financial pain they will feel will be short lived while the benefits of a diplomatic solution to the Iranian problem will be of untold benefit to the entire world.

If UNSC members Russia and China do not wish to enforce international norms then it is up to the remaining global powers to do so. Enacting multilateral sanctions outside of the UNSC does not make the U.N. or its Security Council any more irrelevant than it already is and would do much to demonstrate to those countries flaunting the international order, not just Iran, that such conduct will not be tolerated by the rest of the world’s powers.