Iran has failed to respond positively to a package of economic, security and political incentives offered by the United States and other world powers. Instead, Tehran once again has sought to exploit such overtures with delaying tactics, hoping to gain time to perfect its uranium enrichment capabilities and block the imposition of harsher sanctions.  This continued defiance must be met with immediate and biting sanctions to persuade the regime to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. 

Iran is once again using the ruse of negotiations to continue its nuclear work and stave off tougher sanctions.

• In response to a generous incentives package offered by the United States and other world powers, Iran ignored demands that it suspend its enrichment of uranium and instead called for protracted, open-ended negotiations that U.S. and European officials said would take years.
  
  
• When the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (the P5 +1) gave the Iranians two additional weeks to respond to their offer, Iran’s  Foreign Minister continued Iran’s stalling tactics, saying “We do not know of any deadlines.”
  
  
• Iran has long used such tactics in negotiations with the West. Former lead Iranian negotiator Hassan Rowhani proudly claimed in a March 2006 speech that while “negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment at the Isfahan site.”
  
  
• Beyond Iran’s diplomatic maneuvers, the country’s radical leadership continues to make clear that Tehran has no intention of ending its enrichment of uranium in exchange for economic, security and political guarantees from the United States and other countries.
  
  
• Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini said last week, “The Iranian nation, by depending on its useful experience and advantages of 30 years of resistance, does not pay any attention to such talk and will continue with its path,” while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed not to “retreat one iota” in Tehran’s nuclear pursuit.

Iran continues to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and hamper investigations into its activities. 

• Iran is rapidly moving toward a nuclear weapons capability, aggressively pursuing a uranium enrichment program. IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei recently said that if Iran chose to do so, it could produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb in six months to a year.
  
  
• Last week, Ahmadinejad announced that the Islamic Republic had nearly doubled the amount of centrifuges it has to 6,000. While there has been no hard evidence to validate this claim, the Associated Press quoted a senior U.N. official saying that Iran's goal of 6,000 machines running by the summer was “pretty much plausible.”
  
  
• Iran also continues to work on its missile capabilities, staging a much-publicized test of long-range missiles capable of striking Israel, U.S. forces in the region and America’s allies in Europe.  According to evidence presented by the IAEA, Iran also has conducted studies on how to modify its Shihab-3 ballistic missile to accommodate a nuclear warhead.
  
  
• Iran is also once again trying to block efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to look into aspects of its nuclear program. Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said Iran would refuse to cooperate with IAEA inspectors on questions concerning links between Iran's military and civilian nuclear facilities.

The U.S. and other world powers must quickly agree on significantly increased sanctions to gain Iran’s suspension of its nuclear activity.

• Failing to respond to Iran’s intransigence will only bolster Iran’s view that it can continue its illicit activity with impunity. The Security Council, which agreed in March to impose additional measures if Iran did not suspend its nuclear activity within 90 days, must pursue a fourth round of sanctions on Tehran.
  
  
• The United States should sanction the Central Bank of Iran as well as banks that continue to conduct transactions with banks already subject to U.S. sanctions. America should also lead an international effort to persuade nations to cease exports of refined petroleum products to Iran.
  
  
• Congress should pass comprehensive legislation ratcheting up the pressure on Iran by closing loopholes in U.S. sanctions against Iran and authorizing investors to divest from companies that operate in Iran's oil sector.
  
  
• The European Union should dramatically reduce its trade with Iran and end government-backed insurance for trade with Tehran. For example, Germany should stop the planned export of three liquefied natural gas plants to Iran by German engineering firm Steiner Prematechnik Gastec GmbH.
  
  
• China and Russia, both of which continue to expand their trade with Iran, should suspend all new business with Tehran. In addition, neither nation should fill the void left by nations that have reduced their business dealings in Iran.