United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hopes to secure promises of an oil life-line for China should Iran retaliate against enhanced sanctions.

China is reluctant to agree to further United Nations’ sanctions against Iran for fear of putting its own economy in jeopardy. China relies on Iran for much of its oil supply. It is also investing billions of dollars in Iran’s oil industry. In order to allay these fears, Ms Clinton hopes to secure an agreement that Saudi Arabia would step in should Iran turn off the tap.

Revolutionary Guard targeted
The US hopes Saudi Arabia can put pressure on China to agree to new sanctions targeted specifically at the business interests of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Iran expert and political analyst Jaakko Kooroshy from the Hague Centre for Stategic Studies told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that China is Iran’s biggest trade and investment partner. The promise of guaranteed oil may not be enough to win it over.

“It’s a bit unrealistic of the Americans to expect that this move towards Saudi Arabia will get the Chinese to agree to sanctions. The Chinese have just invested two billion dollars to develop a new Iranian oil field. This is only the first part of an agreement where China will invest more than 100 billion [dollars] over 25 years for liquefied natural gas and oil.”

Military dictatorship
The United States believes that Iran is moving towards a military dictatorship and that real power in the country lies with the Revolutionary Guard. These 'guardians' of the Iranian revolution are leading the development of Iran’s nuclear programme. According to Jaakko Kooroshy, they also have extensive business interests.

“If the US gets the international community to agree on sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard, this will touch hundreds of enterprises and thousands of people and that would be a considerable advance in terms of the harshness of sanctions against Iran.”

Iran recently announced that it is capable of enriching uranium to 80 percent purity, which is close to levels experts say would be needed to build a nuclear bomb.