Diplomacy with Iran is difficult to follow at the best of times. Yesterday Gordon Brown added to the confusion by announcing sanctions on Iran that do not exist. Whatever his motive, it has not helped Britain’s relations with the US, the EU or Iran. Quite a feat.

Here is the background. Standing next to George W. Bush, the prime minister yesterday announced tough new EU sanctions on Iran.”We will take action today,” he said, “that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the bank Melli.”

This delighted the US diplomats, who have been pushing the EU to take action against this bank for months. The sanctions were duly reported in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post (front page).

The big qualification to this is that there are no new sanctions in place. Bank Melli is working in exactly the same way today as it worked yesterday. It can use its assets in whatever way it likes. (Indeed, one imagines they will now be moving a lot of them to Dubai.) Its offices in London are open.

As one diplomat put it to me, Mr Brown “was wrong”. He made an incorrect statement. The problem is that the US delegation and the US press believed him. On the scale of diplomatic blunders, one delegation member put it as a “seven out of 10″.

What emerged yesterday is that the EU agreed (some weeks ago) on what action to take against Bank Melli. This is a significant step. But they have not agreed on when to take it. Downing St argue this is a formality and the sanctions will be imposed in coming weeks. Yet this gap is important, particularly as the EU has made a new offer to Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme in return for economic and political support. The Iranians have yet to respond. Mr Brown effectively punished Iran with the stick before Iran decided whether to take the carrot.

It is difficult to determine whether Mr Brown’s intervention has made a difference to the outcome of the talks with Iran. But it is hard to imagine the negotiators welcomed this surprise announcement, or relished explaining it to the Iranians. A decision like this is announced with the agreement of 27 EU foreign ministers, not after a UK/US bilateral. Unexpected moves like this do not help to build trust.

The British had some explaining to do to the American delegation too. Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, was so certain the sanctions were imminent he told the White House “press gaggle” to expect an announcement after a meeting in Brussels.

“You’re going to hear, as the prime minister indicated, an expectation that out of…the EU foreign ministers meeting this afternoon…there will be an announcement of new sanctions on Iran,” he said. When asked whether the sanctions were in place, or still under negotiation, he said Mr Brown had told him they would “imposed sanctions” on Melli and examination of further oil and gas measures.

“He said it would come out of an EU foreign ministers meeting at 3pm, was what Brown said. That was his expectation, the prime minister’s expectation,” Mr Hadley said.

For the US this was an important breakthrough. For some time US diplomats have been pushing the UK to take unilateral action against Melli because the EU was dragging its feet. Full EU sanctions against this bank was a big boon to Mr Bush as he ended his farewell tour of Europe. Whenever the British officials put the US delegation straight and explained that Bank Melli had not had its assets frozen, it must have been quite a let down.

What went wrong?

June 17, 2008 11:47am in Gordon Brown | Comment