How Smart Are the Iran Sanctions?

In the face of the rising hysteria regarding Iran’s development of its nuclear power facilities, there is talk of preemptive military strikes against Iran. Meanwhile, sanctions on Iran – by both the UN Security Council and the United States – have become increasingly harsh. And to the extent they are successful, these sanctions will harm the wrong people and have little impact on the political leadership.

Yet another round of sanctions doesn’t seem to have caused Iran to buckle. After the Security Council imposed new sanctions in June, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compared the new resolutions to “a used handkerchief that should be thrown in the waste bin,” and Iran’s envoy to the IAEA said that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program “will not be suspended, even for a second.”

Such responses are not surprising. In general sanctions do not work, in any regard. Almost invariably, they impact the poorest and most vulnerable, while the political and military leaders are insulated from their impact. Although the United States often views itself as providing a kind of moral leadership by sanctioning other nations, that view is almost never shared by the targeted population. Instead, sanctions trigger resentment and resistance among the population and produce greater support for the government in the face of attacks from outside.

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