“With recent reports indicating that Iran may be open to broad discussions with the United States, now is the time for the Obama administration to capitalize on the leverage gained from sanctions and seek an end to the current nuclear impasse,” said Heeley.
Are Sanctions on Iran Working?
Yesterday, Center Scoville Fellow Usha Sahay and I released a report that examines the impact of sanctions on Iran and the effect those sanctions are having on nuclear negotiations. Some excerpts are below…
Sanctions have served as a useful tool for exerting pressure on Iran and demonstrating resolve against its proliferation activities. The signs of progress seen in negotiations in February indicated that sanctions can be an effective tool of leverage, but only when sanctioners exhibit a corresponding willingness to lift sanctions. However, the promise of sanctions relief becomes increasingly difficult to deliver on when sanctions begin to overlap and their objectives become unclear.
[snip]
A key way in which sanctions have succeeded is as a signaling mechanism: sanctions show that the international community is united against Iran’s continued defiance, and that it is willing to take significant action to facilitate a negotiated solution. The unprecedented degree of international unity against Iran’s nuclear program can be seen in the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions, which require approval by Russia and China, nations which have previously been reluctant to sanction Iran.
[snip]
Sanctions have increased in both scope and number, and the sanctioners’ willingness to lift the measures has appeared dubious, with the recent limited exception of the first round of Almaty talks in February. In this way, the complexity of the set of sanctions may be impeding negotiations by creating doubts in Iran about whether negotiations in fact will lead to significant reductions.
Are Sanctions on Iran Working?
A Report by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation June 3, 2013 By Laicie Heeley and Usha Sahay. Introduction Since 1979, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations have imposed a variety of multilateral and unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran. These measures are intended to increase the international […]
Could a nuclear-armed Iran be contained?
If Iran cannot be peacefully convinced to curtail its nuclear program, the president could soon be faced with a hugely consequential decision: attack Iran in an attempt to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, or recognize that it could do so and embrace deterrence and containment instead. By staking American credibility on a policy of prevention at all costs, Obama may end up believing he has to choose war. But he would be wrong, because deterrence (threatening devastating retaliation) and containment (blunting the spread of Iranian power and influence) may in fact be more prudent than preventive attack.
Summer of Sanctions: Congress Plans New Iran Penalties
On the Center’s website, I’ve written a long piece on the new sanctions bills that the House and Senate will be considering in the next few months. Some of them are measures similar to what we’ve seen before, but there are also some new twists being mu…
