奥巴马政府于周二豁免了对日本和其他欧洲十国进口伊朗石油的制裁，但包括中国、印度和朝鲜在内的几大进口国并未享受这一待遇。
美国国会于去年年底通过了这一制裁法案，旨在对伊朗建造核设施的行为施加外交和经济的双重压力。这一制裁行动把伊朗政府逼上了艰难的境地，以至于它不得不威胁美国如果继续剥夺该国主要货币收入来源，伊朗将对美国最亲密的盟国采取惩罚性措施。
美国国务卿希拉里在一次国会报告中宣布了这个豁免决定，并把这个决定作为新制裁计划成功的证明，因为这些国家已经削减了对伊朗石油的进口。她说，美国“缩小伊朗石油出口市场和把伊朗中央银行从世界金融体系中孤立开的计划”已经有了阶段性的成果。
当以色列威胁要对伊朗采取军事行动时，美国共和党还曾指责政府持支持态度，奥巴马总统则坚持认为通过外交和持续加大的惩罚措施来解决国际对伊朗核武器的关注还需要一些时间。
最近的一套制裁计划——尽管美国政府拒绝，但在国会得到大力支持——将阻止美国公司与任何继续通过该国中央银行购买伊朗石油的国家进行商业往来。然而，该法案也给美国政府足够的时间去演练如何避免全球石油市场的崩溃以及可能给美国一些盟国带来的利益损害。
欧盟已经加入了美国对伊朗加大制裁的计划，宣布取消1月份与伊朗签署的新能源合约，并在7月1日之前逐步停止其他合约。正是这些让欧盟赢得了美国对这些国家免除制裁：比利时、英国、捷克共和国、法国、德国、希腊、意大利、荷兰、波兰和西班牙。
“这些国家做出如此决定其实很不容易，”希拉里说道，“他们不得不在全球经济的艰难时刻重新思考自己国家的能源需求，并快速找到伊朗石油的替代品，它们中的很多国家以前一直依赖伊朗石油进口。”
日本还在去年地震和核危机的余波中挣扎，但仍靠“大幅减少”伊朗石油进口符合可以豁免的条件。但国会的高级官员不会提日本减少了多少，或者将减少对伊朗石油的进口。鉴于国会规则的原因，某官员匿名说去年的公共数据——制裁法案生效之前——日本的进口总量就减少了15%到22%，这些数据完全取决于官方的统计方法。
美国政府高级官员称总共有23个国家从伊朗进口石油，这意味着其他12个国家仍有可能面临美国的制裁。希拉里把周二获得豁免的12个国家称为“第一拨”国家。
一位共和党议员警告人们，日本同意减少石油进口的数额还没有公开，这个数字将直接影响其他国家得到豁免和决定该法案的最终效力，该官员在谈论内部审议时匿名说道。他还说，该法案的倡议者希望“大幅减少”的数额至少应该是18%。
中国、印度、韩国和日本进口伊朗石油的总量达到60%，并且还将继续就此进行协商。按照该法案，奥巴马直至3月28日才会搁置制裁计划，原因是制裁行动可能导致石油市场崩溃。现在看来，搁置不可能发生了，其他国家也会在6月底全部豁免制裁。
“政府发出将增加部分伊朗石油流动性的信号，会让石油市场恢复平静，”保卫民主基金会执行董事马克•杜波维茨（Mark Dubowitz）说道，它非常支持制裁法案。“真正的考验将是印度和中国。”
奥巴马总统和伊朗领导人在波斯新年的那天（也叫诺鲁孜节）发布了明显相异的言论。奥巴马指责伊朗领导人试图封锁伊朗国内信息的自由流通，称将免除对美国反审查科技制造者的制裁。伊朗的最高领导人阿亚图拉赛义德•阿里•哈梅内伊（Ayatollah Ali Khamenei）则劝告国民严防敌国的阴谋，只买本国制造的商品。他含蓄地承认美国的制裁行动的确给伊朗经济带来了严重的损失。
他说，如果伊朗国民只买自己国家生产的商品，“那么伊朗一定会再次战胜敌人的阴谋和1391年那些幸灾乐祸者的诡计。”
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday exempted Japan and 10 European nations from the prospect of biting sanctions intended to punish countries that continue to buy oil from Iran, but it left open the fate of other major importers, including China, India and South Korea.
The sanctions, ordered by Congress late last year to intensify diplomatic and economic pressure over Iran’s nuclear activities, have put the administration in the difficult position of threatening to punish some of the United States’ closest allies while it seeks to squeeze Iran’s main source of hard currency.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who announced the exemptions in a statement, cast them as evidence of the success of the new sanctions because the countries had cut imports. The United States, she said, was making progress in “shrinking Iran’s oil export markets and isolating its Central Bank from the world financial system.”
At a time when Israel has threatened military action against Iran and Republicans have criticized the administration’s approach, President Obama has argued that there is still time to resolve international concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities through diplomacy and increasingly punishing sanctions.
The latest set of sanctions — adopted with strong support in Congress despite objections from the administration — would stop American companies from doing business with any country that continues to buy Iranian oil through that country’s Central Bank. The law, however, gives the administration significant room to maneuver to avoid a major disruption in the global oil market and any collateral damage to close American allies.
The European Union has already joined the United States in increasing sanctions on Iran, banning new contracts for fuel in January and phasing out existing ones by July 1. That earned exemptions for Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain.
“These actions taken by these countries were not easy,” Mrs. Clinton said. “They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on.”
Japan, still struggling in the aftermath of last year’s earthquake and nuclear crisis, qualified under a provision that allows the administration to exempt countries that make “significant reductions” in Iranian imports. A senior State Department official would not say how much Japan had or would reduce its imports. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of department rules, noted that public data from last year — before the law took effect — showed a 15 percent to 22 percent decline in Japanese imports, depending on how they were measured.
In all, 23 countries import Iranian oil, the senior administration official said, meaning 12 more still face the possibility of sanctions. Mrs. Clinton described the countries exempted on Tuesday as “an initial group.”
A Republican Congressional official cautioned that it was not publicly known how much Japan had agreed to reduce its imports. The amount could influence which other countries receive exemptions and determine the law’s ultimate effect, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The bill’s sponsors expected “significant reductions” to be at least 18 percent, the official said.
China, India and South Korea, together with Japan, import more than 60 percent of Iran’s oil, and negotiations with them continue. Under the law, Mr. Obama has until March 28 to waive the sanctions entirely on the grounds that the ban would disrupt the oil markets, a move now not considered likely, and by the end of June to exempt other countries.
“It will calm oil market anxiety by signaling that the administration is going to let some Iranian oil flow,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, which favors the sanctions. “The real test is going to be India and China.”
Mr. Obama and Iran’s leader issued starkly divergent messages on Tuesday, the Persian New Year, which is called Nowruz. Mr. Obama castigated Iranian leaders for seeking to block the free flow of information in Iran, and said American makers of anticensorship technology would be exempted from sanctions against selling to Iran. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, exhorted citizens to beware of enemy plots and to buy only domestically made products. His message implicitly acknowledged the growing deprivations in Iran’s economy because of sanctions.
He said that by consuming every product made in Iran, “once again the Iranian nation will manage to overcome the machinations of the enemies and the tricks of the ill-wishers in the economic arena in the year 1391.”
