Can Sanctions Work Against Iran? – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com 0
Can Sanctions Work Against Iran?
By The Editors
Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said on Friday that the United States, Britain and France would “regret” accusing Iran of hiding a nuclear fuel facility, saying it was not a secret site.
Updated, Sept. 28, 9:30 a.m. | Obama administration officials said on Sunday that they were seeking harsher sanctions against Iran, including, possibly, a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks.
President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France on Friday accused Iran of building an underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel and of hiding the operation from international weapons inspectors for years.
The leaders gave Iran gave two months to comply with international demands or face increased sanctions. Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said the international community “has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.” Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denied that the plant was a secret.
What kinds of sanctions would work in this situation? What strategies might be deployed against Iran now?
- Gary Milhollin and Valerie Lincy, Wisconsin Project
- Nina Tannenwald, Brown University
- Jim Walsh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- George Perkovich, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Stategic and International Studies
- Trita Parsi, National Iranian American Council
Make Sanctions Even Harsher
Gary Milhollin is the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control and Valerie Lincy is a senior research associate at the project. They edit its Iran Watch.
Today’s revelation that Iran has been building — in secret — a uranium enrichment plant should dispel any doubts about the true nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Why would Iran hide such a site — capable of fueling weapons as well as reactors — if it is merely civilian in nature?
If the United States and its partners fail to win an immediate and total freeze of uranium enrichment when they sit down with Iran on October 1, then a policy of economic and diplomatic isolation is in order.
Attacking Iran’s nuclear sites would start another war, and the chance of destroying all of them is slim.
There are only three options at this point. The best is strong sanctions applied by a coalition of like-minded countries, led by the United States. The other two are living with a nuclear-capable or nuclear-armed Iran, or bombing those nuclear and military sites in Iran that we know about.
Given Iran’s belligerence toward the United States and Israel, its support of terrorism, and its bloody repression of domestic opposition, allowing Iran to get the bomb is simply too dangerous. Attacking Iran’s nuclear sites would start another war in the Middle East that is hard to see the end of, and the chance that a bombing campaign would destroy all of Iran’s nuclear sites is slim. This leaves sanctions, which, to have any chance of causing Iran to give up its nuclear work, will have to be put into place quickly.
The first, and easiest, would be to end public subsidies of economic development in Iran through loan guarantees. All developed countries (Japan, the E.U., etc.) should stop using taxpayer money to guarantee investments in Iran. Many governments have cut back on such guarantees — they should now end them.
Foreign governments should also prohibit their companies from undertaking large infrastructure projects in Iran, especially in the energy sector. If foreign companies do pursue such projects, they should be prohibited from doing business in the United States — either selling their products or accessing U.S. capital markets.
Second, all exports of refined petroleum products to Iran should be banned. Congress is now considering legislation that would penalize companies that defy such a ban, including shipping companies and insurance companies that cover these shipments. The legislation should be adopted, and U.S. trading partners should pass similar laws. A shortage of fuel could have a quick and negative effect on the ruling regime.
Finally, Iran’s banking sector should be further squeezed. Euro-zone countries could follow the example of the United States and prevent Iranian entities from using the euro. Without the dollar or the euro, it would be costly and difficult for Iran to move hard currency around the world, and would further raise the cost of doing business for the Iranian government and Iranian companies.
Sanctions are a blunt instrument and will undoubtedly hurt Iranian business and individuals. But given the dreadfulness of the other options now available, sanctions are our best bet.
Could Religion Constrain?
Nina Tannenwald is associate research professor of international relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. She is the author of “The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945.”
The new revelations about an additional enrichment facility are disturbing. There are numerous unanswered questions, and we will need more time to fully assess the implications. On the face of it, however, the new discovery does not appear to fundamentally change the situation.
Iranian leaders have said that nuclear weapons are “un-Islamic” — why not call them on it?
It is important to distinguish between an enrichment capability (the ability to make nuclear fuel) and weaponizing, that is, actually building a nuclear warhead. Iran is determined to have an enrichment capability, a goal widely supported by the Iranian public. Sanctions, even tougher ones, will probably be ineffective in halting Iran’s enrichment efforts, in part because Russia and China are lukewarm about sanctions and also because Iranian leaders are absolutely determined on this point. Sanctions have failed to get Iran to budge so far.
Iran clearly wants a “break-out” capability, but whether it is committed to actually building a warhead is another matter. Iran does not currently possess a nuclear weapon. There are good reasons for Iran to want a nuclear deterrent, but there are also some downsides, including spurring a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Iranian leaders’ decision about whether to actually weaponize their capability will likely be determined by the larger political context over the next few years and the perceived threats that they face. Threats of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities play into the hands of the pro-nuclear hawks in Iran. Instead, the threat of force should be taken off the table, and the Iranian nuclear issue should be dealt with in the context of a larger effort toward global disarmament as well as regional security arrangements in the Middle East.
There is another angle we might take. Iranian leaders have at various times stated that nuclear weapons are “un-Islamic.” Has any other national leader ever stated publicly that nuclear weapons are, say, “un-Christian” or “un-Jewish” (religious figures, such as the Catholic bishops, have asserted this, but not a national leader)? We needn’t take the Iranians at face value, of course, but why not hold them to this? As part of the resurgent disarmament efforts, we could mobilize cultural and religious values as sources of national restraint. Some might think this starry-eyed, but the Catholic bishops had an important influence on the debate over the morality of deterrence in the U.S. in the 1980s. Why not give it a try?
Sanctions Can’t Be the Centerpiece
Jim Walsh is an expert in international security and a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Today, like most days, talk about Iran is talk about sanctions. Politicians and policymakers are drawn to sanctions because they offer an alternative to the unpleasant choice of war or surrender. Sanctions are also good politics, especially with a regime whose president questions the Holocaust and whose recent election brought both protesters and prison sentences. No one wants to start another war in the region, and sanctions provide the satisfaction of “doing something.”
With Iran, the more public the chastisement, the more likely the answer will be resistance, no matter what the cost.
But will they work? Will they force Iran to abandon its nuclear program? Research on the effect of sanctions is difficult to assess, but some scholars conclude that sanctions work about half the time. They are most effective when applied over a long period of time on small countries that are dependent on the outside world Iran is a big country with oil, and it can build centrifuges faster than the international community can impose sanctions. The Islamic Republic is also a proud country, the kind for which sanctions are as likely to elicit defiance, as they are cooperation. Indeed, the Islamic Republic has been under one kind of sanction or another since its founding 30 years ago. Any objective assessment would have to conclude that sanctions have completely failed to alter Iran’s nuclear policy.
This is not to suggest that they are without merit. They add cost and inconvenience, especially when the price of oil is low and the level of domestic economic mismanagement is high. But are they enough to induce Tehran to reverse its very public commitment to uranium enrichment? That seems highly unlikely, no matter what sanctions are imposed (and this assumes Russia and China sign up for unprecedentedly harsh sanctions).
A wise government hand once told me (when talking about North Korea) that “they will never change their nuclear policy in the face of sanctions, and they will never change their nuclear policy without sanctions.” The key to this nonproliferation koan is that sanctions give a country an incentive to alter their policy but that public in-your-face sanctions and finger waving only make governments dig their heels in. Sanctions create incentives for negotiation not capitulation.
The same is true for Iran: the more public the chastisement, the more likely that the answer will be resistance, no matter what the cost.
In short, a policy based primarily on sanctions will fail, as it has so far. The inconvenient verities of international relations still apply: countries are rarely forced to change behavior against their will. They have to see that it is in their interest to change course. Insuring that Iran’s enrichment program does not fuel a nuclear weapons effort requires diplomacy, a face-saving out for the clerics in Tehran, benefits for compliance, as well as costs for transgression.
That may be hard for many Americans to swallow, when the understandable urge is to punish Iran for is words and deeds. Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, he does not have the luxury of indignation. He has to solve the problem: prevent Iran’s nuclear program from drifting to weapons, bring peace to Iraq and Afghanistan with Iran on their border, and avoid a war with Tehran that will strengthen al Qaeda and cost this country for decades to come. If he is to be successful, sanctions can help, but they are also a political temptation. If they become the centerpiece of American policy, they will result in failure and with it, an Iran armed with nuclear weapons.
Define and Isolate
George Perkovich is director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Iranian leaders insist they do not want nuclear weapons. That is good. The United States and others should not assert otherwise. Rather, the focus should be on defining what are peaceful nuclear activities, which are all that Iran says it wants to pursue, and what are military nuclear activities.
Iran acknowledges it has no right to do the latter so we should cooperate with Iran in peaceful nuclear activities. For example, we could offer to help it build a small new reactor to produce medical isotopes without using highly enriched uranium, once Iran has answered all the International Atomic Energy Agency’s questions and restored international confidence.
Perhaps the U.S. could offer to help Iran build a small new reactor to produce medical isotopes without using highly enriched uranium.
At the same time we should define with Russia, China and other Security Council members a list of nuclear-related activities that have no non-military purposes. These activities would, in effect, define weaponization and mark the firewall between peaceful nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. If Iran, despite its pledges, undertook one of these specified weaponization-related activities, Russia, China and other Security Council members would be committed to the strongest possible sanctions.
Defining the line between peaceful and military nuclear programs would apply to all countries. However, some activities — like uranium enrichment — can be done for peaceful or military purposes. To give confidence that they are peaceful, states that want to undertake those activities would have to adopt reporting and transparency requirements at least as robust as the I.A.E.A. additional protocol.
U.N. Security Council members should clarify that cat-and-mouse games like Iran is playing with the agency are not consistent with purely peaceful nuclear programs, especially if the activity in question has inherent military applications.
What deters Iran from going too far is isolation — not only from the West, but from the East, North and South. Such isolation would strengthen the breadth and depth of sanctions to come. As important, it would further delegitimize the rulers who put the country in this embarrassing situation. Iranian nationalism is now wedded to resistance against anyone forcing it to abandon a peaceful nuclear program.
But if Iran’s leaders have been caught lying about their program, and will not make an accommodation to end their isolation by foregoing military nuclear activities, frustration with that leadership will mount.
Not Many Options
Anthony H. Cordesman is Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Stategic and International Studies and the author, most recently, of “Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict.”
We need to pursue every diplomatic option we can, and keep exploring different mixes of sanctions and incentives to see if there is a way to change Iran’s behavior. We also need to understand, however, that this is an ideological and authoritarian regime that has “gamed” the West ever since it came to power.
International pressure may be able to keep Iran from open testing of nuclear weapons and deployment.
Iran developed covert purchasing networks during the Iran-Iraq War, and it has systematically built up it missile and nuclear capabilities since it first came under chemical and missile attack from Iraq. We know from work by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and from Iranian disclosures, that Iran has done far more than simply improve its uranium enrichment capability. It has acquired all of the triggering devices, specialized explosive and lens technology, neutron initiator components, and uranium machining capability needed for fission weapons.
It acquired significant amounts of Chinese and North Korean nuclear weapons design data, possibly through the A.Q. Khan network. It has developed the capability to build medium range missiles with high payloads that can carry nuclear warheads. It has also spread this activity into dozens of facilities and well over a hundred major buildings.
It is hard to believe that Iran’s present leadership is really going to do anything more than stretch out negotiations, and try to avoid getting caught, and go on with what it is already doing. They probably do not care about the peaceful incentives the U.S. and other states can offer. Sanctions can be used become a propaganda tool while they let the Iranian people suffer.
Like it or not, we may face a future where Iran goes on seeking nuclear capabilities, and waging a diplomatic war of deception. The best we can probably hope for is a situation where international pressure keeps Iran from open testing and deployment. The more likely case may be having to confront an Iran that deals with the international community by ignoring the U.N. and sanctions, dragging out negotiations until it actually has the bomb.
Diplomacy Is the Only Solution
Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and author of “Treacherous Alliances: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.”
The revelation of a new enrichment plant in Iran has further complicated the Obama administration’s efforts to engage in diplomacy with Iran to find a nuclear fix. While there are questions as to whether Iran needed to report the plant earlier — the rules say that a Nonproliferation Treaty member state must inform the International Atomic Energy Agency 180 days before fissile material is introduced into the plant — the revelation further reduces trust between Iran and the U.N. Security Council.
Change we can believe in cannot be a ratcheting up of sanctions we don’t believe in.
While diplomacy may be a long shot, the proponents of sanctions have an even more difficult task. Unlike diplomacy, sanctions have a clear, decades-long track record of failure. In 1995, before Iran had any enrichment plants, comprehensive trade and investment sanctions were imposed on Iran to curb its nuclear activities. Nearly 15 years later, Iran’s nuclear program continues to advance. The only thing that has been curbed is the belief in sanctions as an effective stand-alone instrument to address this problem.
Indeed, few in the Obama administration have any confidence that the sanctions path will lead to a resolution to this nuclear stand-off. More likely than not, it will be a slippery slope toward a more ominous confrontation between Iran and the U.S. That is why diplomacy must be tried and exhausted, however difficult it may be.
So change we can believe in cannot be a ratcheting up of sanctions we don’t believe in.
At the same time, diplomacy limited to the nuclear issue is unlikely to succeed either. The Bush administration tended to reduce countries to a single-issue problem. In the case of Iran, it was reduced to enrichment, which just happened to be the one issue where the U.S. had the least amount of leverage.
Diplomacy with Iran will be more successful if the existing links between the nuclear issue and the other areas where Iranian behavior creates challenges for the U.S. — including Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran’s abysmal human rights record — are utilized to amass leverage rather than ignored. The U.S. has leverage as well as tangible things it can offer Iran in terms of regional security, and it can challenge Iran’s effort to question American regional leadership by addressing rather than shying away from Iran’s systematic human rights abuses.
In this search for leverage, the answer does not lie in broad-based sanctions, but in the enlargement of the agenda.
Can Sanctions Work Against Iran? – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com
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