SANCTIONS ARE ONLY A STOP-GAP
By Patrick Clawson
Foreign Affairs
May 9, 2012
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The question is not whether sanctions have worked but whether the
strategy they serve is correct.
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To judge the effectiveness of Western sanctions against Iran, it is
important to first establish their purpose. U.S. officials and their
European counterparts have set out a number of different goals for
the sanctions regime, including deterring the proliferation of
nuclear technology across the Middle East, as other countries
imitate Iran, and persuading Iran to comply with the UN Security
Council’s orders to suspend all nuclear enrichment. The sanctions
have met some of those aims and failed to meet others. But for the
Obama administration, they have succeeded in one crucial way --
bringing Iran back to the negotiating table. The question, then, is
not whether sanctions have worked but whether the strategy they
serve is correct.
To begin with, Tehran’s decision to reenter discussions about the
future of its nuclear program represents a dramatic about-face.
During the January 2011 round of negotiations between Iran and the
so-called P5 plus 1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council and Germany), for example, Tehran rejected any talk of its
nuclear program. For the next 15 months, it refused to meet until
the P5 plus 1 accepted the precondition of Iran’s right to enrich
uranium. In new talks in Istanbul this past March, however, Iran
agreed to discuss its nuclear efforts and dropped its precondition.
The Islamic Republic did not do this out of goodwill but because of
tougher sanctions. By demonstrating a willingness to negotiate and
working closely with Europe, the Obama administration has rallied
many countries behind its efforts. This broad coalition has
established increasingly severe sanctions -- results that the United
States could not have achieved alone. In March, for example, the
European Union banned the largest Iranian banks from the Society for
Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, the main
institution used for transferring money between banks across the
globe, thereby crippling the ability of Iranian financial
institutions to conduct business. And earlier this year, the
European Union began imposing an oil embargo on Iran that has
already reduced the country’s oil exports. In the last six months,
these measures, along with Iran's erratic economic policies, have
robbed the currency of half its value and, according to Iranian
estimates, caused inflation to soar above 20 percent (and likely
much higher). Iranian Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani
described the sanctions “as worse than physical war,” proclaiming
Iran “under siege.” And Iranian business leaders worry that more
sanctions are on the way, since the United States and Europe have
made clear that the longer the impasse over its nuclear ambitions
continues, the more economic and political trouble Iran will face.
The sanctions have also helped Washington slow Tehran’s nuclear
progress. Alongside sabotage, defections, cyber attacks, and
assassinations, sanctions -- such as the UN ban on the acquisition
of so-called dual-use items, seemingly benign technologies that
could be applied to the nuclear program -- have hampered Iran’s
technological advancement. For example, the Islamic Republic,
despite its best efforts, continues to use a poor, outdated design
for its centrifuges, which frequently break down because the country
cannot obtain better technology or high-quality materials.
Yet the sanctions do have limits. The EU oil embargo and U.S. and EU
financial restrictions have largely failed to decrease Iran’s oil
revenue. Those sanctions would have had much more impact a decade
ago, when Iran averaged $19 billion a year in oil income. Oil prices
are now so high that Iran can compensate for Western pressure. Prior
to the recent sanctions, the International Monetary Fund estimated
that revenue from Iran’s oil and gas exports in 2012–13 would reach
$104 billion, $23 billion more than in 2010–11. In March, The Wall
Street Journal cited estimates that sanctions could cut Iranian oil
income in half -- painful but still equal to the $54 billion Iran
earned from oil sales in 2005–6, the year when it decided to provoke
the West by resuming nuclear enrichment after a three-year pause.
Even if sanctions could somehow decimate Iran’s economy, there is
still no guarantee that the regime would end its pursuit of nuclear
technology.
Whether or not diplomacy results in an agreement, the sanctions have
already fulfilled the core objective of the Obama administration --
namely, kick-starting negotiations. But that is not the right goal.
Given Iran’s poor track record of honoring agreements, negotiations
remain a gamble because they may never lead to an agreement, let
alone one that can be sustained. Rather than focus on talks that may
not produce a deal, then, the United States should place far more
emphasis on supporting democracy and human rights in Iran. A
democratic Iran would likely drop state support for terrorism and
end its interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries such
as Iraq and Lebanon, improving stability in the Middle East. And
although Iran’s strongly nationalist democrats are proud of the
country’s nuclear progress, their priority is to rejoin the
community of nations, so they will likely agree to peaceful
nuclearization in exchange for an end to their country’s isolation.
The United States could assist democratic forces in Iran by
providing money and moral support. It could fund people-to-people
exchanges and student scholarships; support civil society groups
providing assistance to Iranian activists; work closely with
technology companies such as Google on how to transmit information
to the Iranian people; and overhaul Voice of America’s Persian News
Network, where journalistic standards have suffered under uneven
management. It could also raise human rights abuses in every
official meeting with Iranian officials, such as the ongoing nuclear
negotiations, and bring Iranian rights violations to the United
Nations and the International Court of Justice. Iran’s supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, understands the danger of a popular
revolution in his country and has done everything in his power to
prevent it. If the United States is going to take a risk, it should
aim not for a partial, insecure nuclear arrangement but the best
return possible -- a democratic Iran.
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Patrick Clawson is director of research and head of the Iran
Security Initiative at The Washington Institute.
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Source:پژواک ایران