The recent events in Iran have led to posts on the importance of increasing the intensity of and solidifying the international will for economic sanctions (see posts here and here). The intent of intensifying economic sanctions is to force a shift in how Iran calculates the costs of pursuing a weapons program. Due to the programs currently low costs—limited sanctions from the US and EU, UN resolutions demanding cessation of enrichment programs—Tehran accurately deduces it’s acting according to its best interests (see Milani’s excellent FA’s paper concerning the sound rational of Iran’s strategy). A policy intensifying economic sanctions would strain Iran’s economy, thereby further (1) increasing public frustration with the regime, (2) increasing demands for change, (3) reawakening the revolutionary opposition from the presidential elections, (4) and widening the fissures among the governing elite who disagree with the country’s current course towards conflict with the west. All these results could be catastrophic for regime stability, the core interest of the Ayatollah and the governing elite.
There are many obstacles to intensifying sanctions, however. No international consensus for sanctions currently exists. Despite calls from some individuals within the Obama administration, the US did not push for greater sanctions at the G-8 summit last week in Italy. The European Union (EU), though it stems the flow of advanced technology and investment into Tehran, is Iran’s leading trading partner, accounting for a quarter of Iran’s international trade (primarily due to Iran’s overwhelming energy resources). If Europe is to fully come on board, it must satisfy its energy needs elsewhere. Further, China and Russia present a particularly taxing opposition against sanctions. Both states have expressed outright opposition to increasing sanctions against Iran, and Russia has been supplying Iran with enriched uranium and building it a nuclear reactor. Moreover, Russia and China have increased trade with Iran proportionate to Iran’s decrease in trade with the US & EU, thus dampening the effect of current sanctions.
If economic sanctions are to prove successful and the US able to peacefully prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the US must galvanize the major economic partners of Iran to its way of thinking. Despite the difficulties describe above, international support for sanctions can be established. In the case of Europe, the EU has historically been willing to use economic sticks and carrots to entice good behavior from developing states. In response to Iran’s renewal of its uranium enrichment program in 2003, for example, the EU decisively restricted trade with Iran to incentivize a positive change in Iran’s behavior. Increasing sanctions will be difficult given the EU’s energy needs, its dependence on and distrust of Russia’s energy and petro-brinkmanship, and Iran’s willingness to provide an alternative source; but the resolve does exists.
Russia and China present a greater challenge to establishing a consensus for sanctions; nonetheless, notwithstanding their obstinate opposition to sanctions, both states are interested in a nuclear free Iran—neither wants to deal with increased justifications for horizontal proliferation in NK, East Asia, or, due to the effects of a security dilemma, the Middle-East. Russia and China are merely acting according to their short-term economic interests under the belief that the US solely bears the onus and possesses the ability to resolve the Iranian issue. Obama recently attempted to win Russian acquiescence by linking cooperation on the new START pact with Russian support for economic sanctions; the Russians called the administrations bluff, however, and the policy option has since been abandoned. Considerations are being made to link the dismantling of US anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic with Russian support for sanctions. This is a step in the right direction, but US efforts to win Russian and Chinese cooperation must be pursued (1) more aggressively, (2) in tandem with the EU, and (3) outside the framework of any formal international institutions (e.g. the UN). Only through affecting a change to the costs of Iran’s nuclear program can the US expect Tehran to reconsider whether it’s in its best interest. And only through intense, international sanctions can the US expect to peacefully increase those costs.
[…] that the excruciating sanctions necessary for changing the incentive calculus of proliferation are politically impossible. Further, despite his rhetoric about “tough” talks, most of the signals Obama sends indicate […]