fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Even If Iran Sanctions “Work,” They Will Not Achieve Their Real Objective

If sanctions are waged in the name of the Iranian people, we are much more likely to see Western opinion remain solidly behind them. ~Gerecht and Dubowitz When you consider the effect that “crushing” sanctions will have on the Iranian people, this seems a very odd thing to say. Western opinion might continue to back […]

If sanctions are waged in the name of the Iranian people, we are much more likely to see Western opinion remain solidly behind them. ~Gerecht and Dubowitz

When you consider the effect that “crushing” sanctions will have on the Iranian people, this seems a very odd thing to say. Western opinion might continue to back such sanctions out of a misguided belief that the sanctions were helping the Iranian people against their government, but all this tells us is that Western opinion will be wrong yet again on the virtues of sanctioning an authoritarian government. To the extent that “crushing” sanctions are effective, they will be disastrous for most Iranians, and they will be fatal to the mobilization of a strong political opposition. Gasoline sanctions advocates are proposing to implement a measure that will devastate the Iranian middle class. Sanctions will make the population even more dependent on whatever support the government provides, and the current leaders will make sure that shortages do not apply to them and their supporters. If such sanctions are really effective, they will do enormous economic damage to Iran, but this will not precipitate an uprising or a collapse of government. All that will be accomplished is the impoverishment of the regime’s internal opponents. The result will be the exact opposite of what sanctions advocates expect.

Remarkably, Gerecht and Dubowitz admit early on that they don’t really believe that sanctions will change Iranian regime behavior:

Men who talk about crushing the “enemies of God” won’t give up their enriched uranium because transaction costs have increased. The acquisition of the bomb is now probably inseparable from the ruling elite’s religious identity.

As usual, the only other solution that occurs to the authors is regime change:

Iranians who are fed up with theocracy are certainly not going to embrace it if Mr. Obama declares gasoline sanctions the midwife of representative government.

They won’t have to embrace it. They will be stuck with it and they will also be stuck with the ever-increasing role of the IRGC and the military in economic life. Whatever representative government sanctions advocates expect to midwife will be stillborn. The people who would lead and work for such a government will have either fled the country to escape the economic stagnation or they will have been so preoccupied simply making a living that they will be unable to organize effectively against the regime.

Through all of it, they and their countrymen will know that their severe economic distress did not have to happen, but that it was inflicted on them by arrogant Western governments that refused to permit Iran even to develop nuclear power that it has a right to develop. Nationalist outrage will not make most Iranians into true believers in the current system, but it will direct their frustration and anger toward the foreign governments that are imposing sanctions on them. The insulting and condescending claim that these governments are really imposing those sanctions for the people’s own good will generate even stronger anger. Meanwhile, those who blame the regime for the country’s predicament will be under great pressure to remain quiet, or else they will appear to be aligning themselves with the governments that are inflicting the damage on Iran.

There is another issue that sanctions advocates never address: what if their proposal results in a new government, but the new government wants to pursue a bomb and continue Iran’s foreign policy? As far as they are concerned, nothing meaningful will have changed. Even if things happened more or less just as they envision, the current leadership fell and a “representative” government replaced it, why should we assume that the current regime’s assumed drive for a nuclear weapon will not continue under the next government? The Shah pursued a bomb, and the revolutionary regime is most likely pursuing a bomb, so what is going to prevent the next government from doing the same?

After all, if the civilian leadership changes the Iranian military establishment is not going to disappear and it is unlikely to abandon whatever nuclear ambitions it previously had. In Pakistan civilian governments come and go, but it is the military establishment that really dictates Pakistani security and foreign policies. It seems as if Iran is becoming much more like this as time goes on. So we should expect that the Iranian “deep state” will ensure a great deal of policy continuity.

The fantasies of Richard Haass aside, there is no guarantee that a new civilian leadership will make the Iranian governmet more “moderate” abroad (i.e., accommodating to U.S. demands). First, the new leadership may not want to end its support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and it may not want to abandon pursuit of nuclear weapons. Especially if the new leadership somehow came to power in the wake of brutal Western-imposed sanctions, might it not conclude that it needs to acquire a nuclear deterrent to prevent Iran from being treated that way in the future? Second, the military establishment may not give it much of a choice in the matter. For the IRGC and military to permit a change in civilian leadership, they would probably make some deal with the new civilian leaders that they should not interfere or attempt to change Iranian security and foreign policies very much at all. Even if the new government was inclined to make changes, it might not be allowed to make them, and it might not survive the attempt if it tried.

Sanctions advocates do not have a remotely persuasive argument that their proposal will destabilize the current regime, and their proposal would almost certainly destroy Iran’s opposition while doing nothing to change Iranian regime behavior. However, in the highly unlikely event that their policy succeeded in changing the government there is little reason to expect that this would yield the Iranian policy changes that they desire.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here