Mitt Romney has a not-so-cunning plan for Iran:

Asked specifically what he would do to dissuade Iran, Romney said the answer is in better communications.

“We have to communicate that to the people of Iran. We have to support dissident voices within Iran,” he said. “We have to put in place crippling sanctions. We also need to make sure that we have military options we are prepared to execute, and if we do those things, I think we have prospects of dissuading them, he said. “At the same time, we have to be ready to take military action.”

Iranians already have some idea of what the U.S. wants, and most of them don’t like it. Most Iranians support their nuclear program, and according to Gallup two-fifths of Iranians support a program for military use:

Hooman Majd had this to say about the impact of sanctions on Iran:

So sanctioning Iran’s central bank and embargoing Iranian oil, tactics the White House may be using as a way to avoid having to make a decision for war, will neither change minds in Tehran nor do much of anything besides bring more pain to ordinary Iranians. And making life difficult for them has not, so far, resulted in their rising up to overthrow the autocratic regime, as some might have hoped in Washington or London.

Imposing even more “crippling sanctions” will keep helping the regime to smother “dissident voices within Iran.” The Iranian opposition will be (and are already being) economically ruined by sanctions, and the space for political dissent will keep shrinking as more foreign pressure is put on Iran. That is why Iranian dissidents and opposition figures have consistently been against the imposition of economic sanctions.