By Jeremy B. White: Subscribe to Jeremy's RSS feed
January 21, 2012 10:27 AM EST
As the United States begins to implement a tough new set of sanctions on Iran, some experts are warning that tightening the economic vise could backfire, embolden the ruling regime rather than weakening it.
The new sanctions, which punish financial institutions that do business with the Central Bank of Iran, is aimed mainly at constraining oil exports, which are the backbone of the Iranian economy.
But there is no guarantee that tightening the screws further on the Iranian economy will slow down the regime's apparent ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. Indeed, despite years of sanctions, Iran's rulers have been defiant of the West's attempts to rein them in. In recent weeks, in response to the sanctions, Iran's rulers have appeared increasingly bellicose, threatening to close down the crucial trade artery of the Straits of Hormuz.
Tougher Sanctions - Wrong Message?
Tougher sanctions, which may have only limited impact because of the regime's intransigence, may be sending the wrong message at precisely the wrong time, says John Limbert, a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and former senior State Department official who specialized in Iranian policies.
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"I have to take the president's word at face value that we want a relationship with Iran and we want engagement with Iran based on mutual respect," Limbert said. "On the other hand, these sanctions look suspiciously like the aim is not to have mutual respect but to have the other side say 'ok, we give up.'"
Moreover, adds George Lopez, a professor of political science and an expert on sanctions at the University of Notre Dame, if Iran does raise the white flag, what then?
"You can only coerce them to dialogue, but you're not going to punish them into disarmament," Lopez said. "Having squeezed them economically, you had better be ready with a plan and had better be ready with incentives for the plan."
Lopez worries that Congress, which has been more aggressive than the Obama administration in pursuing the harsher sanctions, is "solely in punishment mode."
Economic Sanctions: Uneven Record
Part of the problem is that economic sanctions have a historically uneven record. Skeptics point to Iraq, where years of comprehensive sanctions devastated the economy, by one estimate leading to the premature deaths of some 500,000 children, without dislodging Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq-Iran comparison is not precise -- the Iraq sanctions affected the entire economy, whereas the Iran sanctions are targeted specifically at financial transactions that would benefit government or the military. But there is a similar question of whether the government would be moved by the hardships endured by everyday Iranians.
"The bottom line object of sanctions is that you put pressure on other elements in a society so they put pressure on their government, but this is far more effective when dealing with democracies" where popular discontent is more likely to resonate, said Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council.
Parsi added that for Iran's rulers, self-preservation could become the overriding consideration.
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