US considers stiffer Iran sanctions

NEW YORK - Growing political opposition in Iran may present an opportunity for the United States to strike hard with sanctions, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing unnamed American officials.
The Obama administration is considering sanctions that would specifically target the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which plays a key role in the nuclear programme and in repression of anti-government demonstrations, the newspaper said.
One official said the unrest and opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "give us a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear programme isn't worth the price tag." Previous rounds of sanctions have had little effect.
The Obama administration officials said they believed that Iran's bomb-development effort was seriously derailed by the exposure three months ago of the country's secret enrichment plant under construction near the holy city of Qom, the report pointed out.
Exposure of the site deprived Iran of its best chance of covertly producing the highly enriched uranium needed to make fuel for nuclear weapons, The Times said.
In addition, international nuclear inspectors report that at Iran's plant in Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges spin to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, the number of the machines that are currently operating has dropped by 20 percent since the summer, a decline nuclear experts attribute to technical problems, according to the report.
Others, including some European officials, believe the problems may have been accentuated by a series of covert efforts by the West to undermine Iran's program, including sabotage on its imported equipment and infrastructure, the paper said.
These factors have led the administration's policymakers to lengthen their estimate of how long it would take Iran to accomplish what nuclear experts call "covert breakout" -- the ability to secretly produce a workable weapon, The Times noted.
"For now, the Iranians don't have a credible breakout option, and we don't think they will have one for at least 18 months, maybe two or three years," the paper quotes one senior administration official as saying.
The administration has told allies that the longer time frame would allow the sanctions to have an effect before Iran could develop its nuclear ability, The Times said.
Iran has also upped the ante. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki presented an "ultimatum" Saturday on its own proposal for a nuclear compromise. Experts suggested the government is hoping a confrontation with the United States will distract attention.