Not quite too late

摘要

Iran is facing sanctions of unprecedented severity. On December 31st Barack Obama signed into law measures demanded by Congress to punish any foreign financial institution transacting business with Iran's central bank, the conduit for most 01 its oil contracts. On January 23rd the European Union, which buys about a fifth of Iran's exported oil, is set to ban future purchases. Under American prompting, Japan and South Korea, which together take a similar amount of Iran's oil, are looking for alternative supplies. These measures follow No- vember's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea), the UN's watchdog, detailing aspects of Iran's nuclear activity that make sense only if the aim is to be able to make nuclear weapons. The sanctions are also meant to show a jumpy Israel that there is an alternative to a military attack.