The five permanent members of the security council on Monday agreed that Iran should suspend it's nuclear program. Those members include China, Russia, France, the UK and the U.S. The AP story said the British Foreign Office reported on a Security Council meeting and they were all in consensus about Tehran's decision to resume uranium enrichment activities. Germany also joined in the discussion and the statement.

e Foreign Office said all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — and Germany had shown "serious concern over Iranian moves to restart uranium enrichment activities."

They agreed on the need for Iran to "return to full suspension," according to a statement.

This is good news on some levels. At least for now, the big 5 are getting along and that is significant. How long this will last remains to be seen. China has major economic interests in Iran regarding oil development but at the same time, nuclear power will upset the balance in the middle east even more so than it already is.

The argument for Iran getting nukes is that Israel has them already. The problem is Israel hasn't stated they seek the obliteration of Islamic states like Iran. The opposite cannot be said to be true.

Iran has said they are interested in negotiating further but at the same time, if they're not willing to give up their nuclear weapons development programs, one has to wonder how far this will go.

The other issue that comes up is the currency situation. Some have suggested that Iran is trying to shift the their oil trading currency to the euro. If this were to occur, it could create significant upheaval regarding our own currency. Some have suggested this was the real reason we went into Iraq. Hussein threatened to switch currencies and that couldn't happen. This would explain why China is interested in keeping Iran away from the currency changes.

China currently spends signficant portions of their own GDP on the U.S. dollar. Our trade deficit with China is high, they peg their own yuan to our dollar and many Asian economies have followed their lead. If the value of the U.S. dollar dropped dramatically, then China would be in trouble too. It would devalue their own currency and economic capabitilies.

I've digressed a bit, but in the end, I think it's we won't invade Iran other than a possible air strike. How much will these countries will change? Probably not much. We'll have to far this goes.



Technorati Tags: Iran, China, Security Council, U.N., oil

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