Ever since she first uttered the phrase in April last year, "crippling sanctions" has been the benchmark for threats of international action against a defiant Tehran.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, repeated the mantra as he headed to Moscow this week to seek Russian support to halt Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. "Harsh sanctions must be placed on Iran, as US Secretary of State Clinton said. We need crippling sanctions," Mr Netanyahu echoed.
Such action, however, may be nothing more than a convenient fantasy. First of all, draconian measures are unlikely to be obtainable, because of the determined opposition of China. Second, they are likely to prove unworkable and could even start a war – the very outcome they are designed to avoid.
"Crippling" has become a code word for a blanket ban on Iran's import of refined petroleum products, particularly petrol. The Islamic republic has the world's second largest proven oil reserves, around 11 per cent of the world total. Its lack of oil refineries, however, means that it has to import about 40 per cent of its refined products.
Many in the West see this as Tehran's Achilles' heel.
Under mounting US pressure, BP and Royal Dutch Shell have withdrawn as suppliers, as has India's Reliance Industries. According to Oil Daily, Iran has imported petrol so far this year from just six companies: the Swiss traders Trafigura and Vitol; the French company Total; the Independent Petroleum Group in Kuwait; the Malaysian state company Petronas; and Litasco, the Geneva-based trading arm of Russia's largest privately owned oil company, Lukoil.
Legislation targeting Iran's petrol imports has passed both chambers of the US Congress, although the two versions still need to be reconciled in a conference between House and Senate, and to be signed by the President. France has mooted the possibility of energy sanctions at the UN.
But China, which imports about 15 per cent of the crude for its surging economy from Iran, is almost certain to wield its UN veto power to block such stringent measures in the Security Council.
Seen from Beijing, Iran does not seem to pose the same strategic threat as it does to Israel, the United States, France, Russia or even Britain. Indeed, the greatest Iranian threat, from a Chinese point of view, would be for Tehran to choke off oil supplies.
Without UN sanctions, friendly countries could legally supply Iran with petrol even if Western companies were forced to stop by their own governments.
Dennis Blair, the US director of national intelligence, told Congress recently that Iran has already begun lining up potential new petrol suppliers.
"Iran has made contingency plans for dealing with future additional international sanctions by identifying potential alternative suppliers of gasoline – including China and Venezuela," Mr Blair said.
To stop a Venezuelan tanker carrying petrol to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, for instance, Western nations would have to resort to their naval power in the Gulf.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, has pointed out that such a blockade would amount to an act of war. The Iranian response could trigger a real shooting war.
Opposition leaders inside Iran have also spoken out against petrol sanctions, saying they would hurt the public not the ruling elite. Their view is that, far from stoking opposition to the Islamic regime, petrol sanctions would strengthen the Government's hand.
So what is behind this Western drive for "crippling" sanctions? Of course, the first goal is to avert the potentially devastating war that could follow a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear sites – either by Israel or the United States.
But the Western strategy is also an acknowledgement that China is the only country which might have the power to force Iran to change track.
Western diplomats involved in the six-power talks on Iran now stress the unity of the group – which means keeping China alongside Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States – above what new measures the group actually agree.
One participant said that the experience of three previous rounds of limited UN sanctions shows that Tehran starts to panic only a couple of weeks before the UN vote, when Iranian officials finally realise that China will go along with the new measures and have to explain the situation to the Supreme Leader.
Implicit in the West's thinking is that the Islamic regime will abandon its nuclear dreams only if China pulls the plug.
The strategy starts to sound similar to that pursued against North Korea. Unlike Iran, North Korea does not have a drop of oil. And yet we know what happened there.
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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