“I don’t see that this causes sufficient pain,” Powell said on ABC’s “This Week” program.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on May 18 that the permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Russia, China, the U.S., U.K. and France -- and Germany have drafted a sanctions resolution designed to pressure Iran into stopping its pursuit of enriched uranium, a material that can be used for a bomb.

“The Iranians have been around for thousands of years, trading and selling and getting around various constraints and what not,” Powell said. “They’re very clever. And they know what sanctions might be coming. And I’m sure that they have done their own planning and have their own counter-sanction strategy.”

Powell’s comments echoed those of a top Iranian dissident, Mohsen Kadivar, a senior cleric and a visiting professor at Duke University’s department of religion, who predicted last week that “they will not manage to isolate Iran with sanctions.” Kadivar was a student of the late Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a top cleric and dissident whose death in December reignited anti-government demonstrations.

Legitimacy of Sanctions

Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity for a growing population. It also complains of a double standard on international nuclear agreements, saying Israel hasn’t been prevented from developing atomic weapons, and has called the proposed new sanctions “illegitimate.”

Iran is already under three sets of UN sanctions for defying the council’s demands to suspend the enrichment of uranium. The proposed economic sanctions would bolster an arms embargo, restrict financial transactions and enhance authority to stop and seize Iranian cargo.

Iran has experience in evading sanctions, and found ways to get hold of arms during the war against Iraq in the 1980s when it was under similar restrictions, Kadivar said. It will use oil revenue to counter the new measures, boosting inflation and hurting the Iranian public, he said.

Powell was secretary of state to Republican President George W. Bush during the run-up to the Iraq War and the first years of the conflict and considered running for president as a Republican candidate in 1996. In the 2008 election, he crossed party lines to endorse Democrat Barack Obama for president. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War against Iraq in the early 1990s.

Iraq Withdrawal

Powell also said on ABC that recent violence in Iraq should not dissuade the White House from proceeding with plans to reduce the U.S. troop presence in the country.

“I think the president is correct to keep it on track and continue with the draw-down,” Powell said. “We cannot maintain this level of deployment forever. It not only is a burden on our troops, it is enormously expensive in a time of budget deficits and national debt.”

Powell said the Iraqi government and military “is ready” to function with fewer U.S. troops. “If they continue to show the effectiveness that their army has shown recently, they should be able to contain this and hold it as we continue our withdrawal,” Powell said.

Powell said the success of efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan will depend heavily on establishing an effective national army, reducing corruption and building public confidence in the government.

“We can do just so much,” Powell said. “It ultimately is going to be in the hands of the Afghans.”

Bloomberg