Obama's Nuclear Summit: Progress on Security, Not Iran

The goals of President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit are so modest and uncontroversial that the event can't be anything but a success. But the real action is taking place on the sidelines of the Washington sit-down, where the President is lobbying world leaders one by one to back new sanctions against Iran. And on that front, his prospects remain decidedly mixed.
"They are prepared to work with us," White House China hand Jeffrey Bader announced after Obama discussed the sanctions issue with President Hu Jintao. But the Chinese quickly poured cold water on any suggestion that they had embraced Washington's view that tough sanctions offer a path to resolving the standoff over Iran's nuclear program. "China always believes that dialogue and negotiation are the best way out for the issue," Foreign Ministry official Jiang Yu said after the meeting. "Pressure and sanctions cannot fundamentally solve it." (Watch TIME's video "Ahmadinejad Says Obama Should Back Off.")
It has become a familiar pattern to hear Administration officials claim Russian and Chinese support for sanctions, only for the extent of that support to quickly pale in the cold light of day. The Chinese do not appear to have reversed their opposition to sanctions; they've simply agreed to discuss a sanctions resolution presented by the U.S. - something they had refused to do until now. The chances of such discussion resulting in a meaningful escalation of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran remain slim. The U.S. is proposing measures to choke off investment in Iran's energy sector, block Iran's access to international credit and punish companies associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. But China is the largest foreign investor in Iran's energy sector, and it has made clear that it opposes measures aimed at stopping such investment. While President Obama reportedly indicated that the U.S. ...