[Mb-civic] Could Sanctions Stop Iran? - Carne Ross - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Could Sanctions Stop Iran?
Recent History Suggests That the Prospects Aren't Good
<>
By Carne Ross
The Washington Post
Thursday, March 30, 2006; A23

Now that the U.N. Security Council has agreed on a statement demanding 
that Iran restrict its nuclear program, the United States and its allies 
are doubtless considering tougher measures, including sanctions, to 
force Iran's compliance. The experience of sanctions imposed on Iraq 
(and on other countries), which I helped engineer and maintain as a 
British diplomat at the Security Council, offers some lessons.

First, no sanctions regime is effective unless its objective is widely 
shared, especially by the neighbors of the targeted state. On Iraq, even 
though the United States and Britain managed, through strenuous 
diplomatic effort, to gain Security Council approval of sanctions, there 
was considerable evasion of the sanctions by Iraq's neighbors and 
others, for whom their economic welfare was more important that the goal 
of disarming Iraq. Even if China and Russia do not block any sanctions 
resolution on Iran, no resolution will be effective unless they and 
other states choose to enforce the sanctions.

Second, oil sanctions are a double-edged sword. In the latter years of 
the 12-year sanctions regime on Iraq, Saddam Hussein often threatened to 
stop Iraq's oil exports in order to deter the United States and Britain 
from imposing measures in the Security Council to thwart his 
sanctions-busting techniques. Then as now, the gap between global oil 
demand and supply was so small that even the threat of stopping Iraq's 
exports caused damaging spikes in global oil prices. Any attempt to 
block or limit Iran's oil exports would surely have similar effects.

Third, even the most aggressive sanctions regimes, such as comprehensive 
economic sanctions, tend not to achieve their desired effects. While 
they were in effect, sanctions on Iraq prevented it from rearming -- 
despite the claims of the U.S. and British governments before the 2003 
invasion. But the sanctions did not force Iraq to comply fully with the 
United Nations' weapons inspectors. It finally took the threat of 
invasion for Iraq to cooperate with the inspectors in the months before 
the war.

Instead, comprehensive sanctions caused considerable human suffering in 
Iraq and, thanks to the control over food rationing that the 
oil-for-food program placed in the regime's hands, they arguably helped 
reinforce Hussein's rule. This mistake must not be repeated.

Fourth, any sanctions regime requires a long-term, patient and detailed 
effort to succeed. Sanctions on Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia were 
effective partly because the United States and the European Union 
devoted considerable resources to targeting Milosevic's illegal 
financial holdings. Although there was lots of rhetoric, and American 
ships patrolled the Persian Gulf, sanctions enforcement on Iraq was 
sporadic, as the United States and its allies allowed Iraq's neighbors, 
particularly Jordan and Turkey, to import oil illegally. It's hard to 
believe that support for sanctions against Iran, even if they were 
imposed, would endure for very long.

Sanctions on Libya, imposed in 1992 after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 
103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, were more effective in part because they 
were more limited. The U.N. ban on arms sales and air travel to Libya 
was seen as measured and commensurate pressure on Moammar Gaddafi to 
comply with the Security Council's demand that two Libyan agents accused 
of planning the bombing be handed over for trial. Even then, it took 
many years before Libya complied. Here there is a lesson that sanctions, 
when supported politically and patiently applied, can eventually work. 
Perhaps here there is scope for something that could work with Iran: a 
package of travel bans and financial measures targeting Iranian leaders. 
Targeted sanctions are, after the Iraq experience, now the fashion.

But there is one big reason why any U.S. effort to obtain sanctions 
against Iran is unlikely to be effective. All U.N. sanctions in the past 
have been imposed on governments that have done something seriously 
wrong -- such as invading other countries (Iraq) or brazenly hosting 
terrorist organizations (the Taliban). The claim that Iran might be 
developing a nuclear bomb hardly meets this standard, particularly 
because Pakistan and India got away with it (and with U.S. sympathy) and 
because U.S. intelligence assertions on weapons of mass destruction are, 
thanks to the Iraq experience, thoroughly disbelieved. Unless Iran is 
silly enough to do something such as testing a bomb (which is not very 
likely), there will probably not be sufficient international support for 
punitive measures.

All of these reasons suggest that sanctions, as a policy option, are far 
from straightforward. Without troublemaking from Iran (which perhaps the 
United States is hoping for), they are unlikely to be agreed to under 
the current circumstances, and even if they are, they will succeed only 
if they are very carefully designed, targeted and supported by long-term 
and diligent diplomacy to shore up support.

The writer is a former diplomat who served in Britain's delegation to 
the United Nations from 1998 to 2002. He is now director of Independent 
Diplomat, a nonprofit diplomatic advisory group.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/29/AR2006032902003.html?nav=hcmodule
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