Sanctions have not been effective at changing Iran’s behavior

Second, existing measures have done little to undermine Tehran’s ability or willingness to further its nuclear weapons program, even considering some of the demonstrable effects U.S. and other countries’ penalties have had on Iran. Many of the individual regime officials targeted for asset freezes have little or no assets in the United States. More broadly, the Iranian regime has used correspondent banks, shell companies, barter and other methods to sidestep existing sanctions, and would likely be able to transfer Central Bank accounts to new institutions, rely more heavily on bartering or simply rename existing accounts if the United States and its international partners were to enforce tougher sanctions. These inconveniences have pushed Tehran to try to impose tighter credit terms and higher prices on future oil contracts with Asian customers, causing Japan and South Korea to look elsewhere for supplies.⁷⁴ All such countermeasures impose costs on Iran, but are not unbearable.

First, it is unclear whether any escalation of sanctions could bring the regime to its knees in time to prevent Iran from achiev- ing a breakout capability. Iran’s apparent willingness to negotiate under pressure is not, in and of itself, evidence that more pressure will produce total surrender. Iran’s economy is in dire straits, but the country does not appear to be facing imminent economic collapse. Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard also seem to believe that the Islamic Republic weathered far worse during the Iran-Iraq War, an eight-year conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians and produced over half a trillion dollars in economic losses before Iran agreed to a cease-fire. Even if Washington goes forward with additional sanctions, economic conditions are not likely to produce enough existential angst among Iranian leaders, gener- ate mass unrest, or otherwise implode the regime before Iran achieves a nuclear breakout capability. And even if they did lead to regime change, it still might not prove sufficient to force a nuclear surrender. After all, the imprisoned leaders of the Green Movement and Iranian secularists opposed to the Islamic Republic, as well as a significant majority of the Iranian people, also support Iran’s declared right to enrichment.

As an instrument of influence, economic sanctions seek to change the calculus of Iranian decisionmakers by raising the costs of contin- ued defiance of international demands. Although the mechanism is an economic one—the economic pain of sanctions is the coercive instru- ment—the ultimate effect must be political, as policy change can only be achieved when economic restrictions create the appropriate political pressure to influence the decisionmaking process.¹⁷

This distinction is critical, because the economic hardship cre- ated by sanctions may in fact not result in political pressure for positive change. Instead, sanctions can have a perverse political effect. They can strengthen the hand of elites that oppose compromise, rally public support for continued defiance, and undermine the very groups that most support the policy changes the sanctions are intended to produce. Sanctions also can trigger effective efforts to adapt by shifting trade patterns or diverting finances, or can even provide rents to regime elements by increasing their control over a scarce good, which they can then preferentially dole out to domestic supporters. Overall, economic pain does not always lead to effective political pressure on the regime.

In many ways, Iran is an unlikely candidate for the successful use of sanctions as a coercive tool. Economic sanctions in general are a blunt and uncertain instrument. Even the most optimistic studies suggest that sanctions will usually fail to achieve their desired coercive goals.¹⁸ This is particularly the case with authoritarian adversaries. Sanctions have an especially poor track record in matters of “high politics” related to state security. Regime survival will always trump eco- nomic pain, and existing UN sanctions—or any sanctions regime the United States is likely to achieve given existing political realities—are not nearly enough to threaten the current regime’s existence.

Advocates of additional sanctions maintain that sanctions forced Iran back to the negotiating table, and that if pressure got them to the table, then more pressure will force them to do accede to more of our demands during the negotiations.

Counter-claim: Skeptics maintain that the reasons for Iran’s return to the bargaining table were more complex than supporters suggest, and that domestic economic mismanagement and Iranian politics played a crucial role.³

Detractors of new sanctions insist that the “if some is good, more is better” logic as dangerously simplistic. Any doctor, for example, would object to the same reasoning if applied to prescription medicine. Medicine administered at a certain dosage can improve the health of a patient, but if that patient turns around and doubles it, they might poison themselves. Imposing new sanctions in the middle of a negotiation, critics claim, will poison the negotiations. As the top intelligence official in the United States told Congress, new sanctions “would undermine the prospects for a successful comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.”4

More broadly, a “punishment only” approach is likely to fail. If countries make concessions, as Iran did in the JPOA, responding with additional punishments reduces their incentive to make further concessions for a final agreement.5 In addition, Iran has demonstrated a very high capacity to endure pain. Recent sanctions have imposed large costs on the Iranian economy, but Iran suffered greater economic pain from the sanctions imposed during the Iran–Iraq War and endured more than 200,000 casualties. Sanctions alone will not force Iran to capitulate.

Assessment: Both proponents and opponents are partly right. Sanctions did contribute to Iran returning to the negotiations, though it has to be said that the outcome was not automatic. If the hardline candidate, Saeed Jalili, had won the election, he certainly would not have resumed negotiations or agreed to the JPOA—something he opposed as Iran’s nuclear negotiator and as a presidential candidate. Whether more is better would seem to depend very much on context. Should Iran fail to comply with its obligations under the JPOA or clearly put off indefinitely reaching a final settlement, additional sanctions might be useful, but imposing them in the middle of a negotiation and confidence-building phase does not, on its face, appear to be the right time to do so.