U.N. Votes on Iran Sanctions

U.N. Votes on Iran Sanctions
By John Jessup
CBN News

CBNNews.com- WASHINGTON - After months of haggling the U.N. Security Council will vote sanctions for Iran on Friday.

The revised draft is designed to put pressure on Tehran to end its nuclear enrichment program, which can be used as a source for civilian energy or to make a nuclear bomb.

During his year-end press conference, President Bush said any resolution must be clear.

Bush said, "The message will be that you -- you, Iran -- are further isolated from the world. My message to the Iranian people is you can do better than to have somebody try to rewrite history, and you can do better than having somebody who's trying to develop a nuclear weapon that the world believes you shouldn't have. There's a better way forward."

The push for a U.N. sanctions vote comes as Iran and its leaders have drawn recent attention with last week's controversial Holocaust conference.

This week's election's where young voters showed their disapproval of political hardliners, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's insistence to Iran's right to nuclear energy, despite the possibility of sanctions.

During a speech in Dubai, Prime Minister Tony Blair singled out Iran and Ahmadinejad as a worldwide threat.

"Here are elements of the government of Iran openly supporting terrorism in Iraq to stop a fledgling democratic process," Blair said.

Blair also highlighted Iran's involvement in de-stabilizing Lebanon's infant democracy, working against peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and its defiant drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

Blair said it was time to wake up. "Yet a huge part of world opinion is frankly almost indifferent," he said. "It would be bizarre if it weren't so deadly serious."

One country that isn't indifferent is Israel, whose top spy chief this week said Iran could have its first atomic bomb in the next three to four years.

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