Sanctions would trap west as much as Tehran

Western officials arrive at Thursday’s meeting with Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, waving what they consider to be a big stick: come clean over what your regime has been up to and co-operate or we will hit you with new sanctions.

As many of the participants know, Mr Jalili is a man who is hard to pin down, prone to the grandiose rhetoric Iran is well known for. No one can be sure what instructions he is carrying to Geneva but, when it comes to sanctions, he can be expected to repeat the line we have heard often from Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad: “Bring them on.”

Sanctions, of course, are not to be dismissed. Ask any businessman in Tehran and you will find that doing business with the outside world has been extremely difficult over the past two years.