State Dept. Response to Iran Kicking Out the IAEA

From today's State Department briefing:

QUESTION: On Iran. Iran's apparently asked -- blocked 38 IAEA inspectors and the IAEA says that they're still confident, even if they couldn't send those 38, that they'd have enough people to monitor what they need to monitor. Do you have a response to that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, we're still looking -- David, we're still looking into thedetails of this report. But you know, even if the IAEA makes the decision that there somehow is a workaround here where they can send other individuals to perform the functions that these individuals were supposed to perform -- and I -- again, I can't confirm the specifics of this story. I refer you back to the two parties in question, the Iranians or the IAEA -- it's another indication that Iran continues in its defiant attitude towards the international community.

They just don't get it. The international community has put them under Chapter 7 sanctions. Yet, here you have another example of the Iranians trying to dictate the terms to the international community -- in this case, the IAEA. And it just -- it -- I don't know who's providing them the leadership their advice, but it doesn't do their reputation in the international system any good and this kind of defiant behavior only adds to that.

They are in a very exclusive club right now. This state under Chapter 7 -- Chapter 7 sanction -- the EU just today made it very clear in public that they were going to fully implement Resolution 1737. The fact that Iran now finds it much more difficult to access the international financial system in the ways that it had in the past in order to facilitate the developments in its weapons of mass destruction programs is again another message to the Iranian people that they find themselves more and more isolated. That's not what we want. It's not our first choice. We've given this regime a different pathway and that pathway certainly is available to them, but they have chosen not to pursue it.

So once again another indication that this regime clearly doesn't get it. They will find -- they continue in this kind of behavior they will find themselves only more and more isolated from the rest of the world. And Iran is -- the Iranian Government is not the kind of government that can function in total isolation from the rest of the world. That's just -- they rely upon the exports of oil. They rely upon the international financial system in order to function. And I'm not saying that we are in any way contemplating or in fact now focusing our efforts on their oil sector. It's just to point out that they -- this is a country that does have a fair degree of integration with the rest of the world. That integration however is dependant on a two-way conversation and there are two sides to it. There's the Iranian side, there's the international community. And in this case, the international community is saying that we are not going to allow business as usual because you are exploiting those international institutions, in this case not a formal institution, but the international financial community, in ways in which we do not agree and there are consequences to that action. So again, the bottom line is, you know, yet another step that really signifies that they're going to find themselves more isolated.

QUESTION: Sean, two separate things here. One is ISNA, the Iranian state news agency, that reported this described it as a first step in curbing their dealings with the IAEA. Do you believe that this presages a further effort to limit the IAEA's operations in Iran?

MR. MCCORMACK: I would hope not. I would hope not. Again, we're working to understand exactly the details here and I would hope that they are not trying to dictate to the IAEA who should be on inspection teams and monitoring teams. I would hope that's not the case because certainly that raises some real questions again about their intent with respect to allowing these monitors in.

Now, I can't speak to what future cooperation they may have with the IAEA or exactly what their intents are. If they do -- I have seen the reports -- they do continue to make various sorts of other threats, but if they don't understand already that that sort of behavior further -- only serves to further isolate them, I guess that they will again have to see that that kind of defiance of the will of the international community will again only be met by their continuing to be isolated more and more from the international community which is not what the Iranian people want.

I would -- just one other point, when I say that we do not want to be isolated necessarily from the Iranian people, we follow through on that. Our -- we had a wrestling team that participated in a tournament in Iran very recently. They've come back. They actually -- they met with -- they had a very warm reception from the Iranian people and I think that's really instructive. Even though this is a regime that spews all sorts of invective about the United States and the others who are seeking to curb their drive for a nuclear weapon, the Iranian people actually desire that sort of contact with the outside world. They desire contact with the American people. We certainly will do what we can to facilitate that but a big obstacle in the way of further developing that is the behavior of this regime and the Iranian people should understand that.

I've heard all of this stuff before somewhere...if only I could remember............