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28 Sep 2009 09:35 am

Will Sanctions Do The Job?

Room For Debate tackles whether sanctions will work against Iran. Jim Walsh is skeptical:

Research on the effect of sanctions is difficult to assess, but some scholars conclude that sanctions work about half the time. They are most effective when applied over a long period of time on small countries that are dependent on the outside world. Iran is a big country with oil, and it can build centrifuges faster than the international community can impose sanctions.

The Islamic Republic is also a proud country, the kind for which sanctions are as likely to elicit defiance, as they are cooperation. Indeed, the Islamic Republic has been under one kind of sanction or another since its founding 30 years ago. Any objective assessment would have to conclude that sanctions have completely failed to alter Iran’s nuclear policy. This is not to suggest that they are without merit. They add cost and inconvenience, especially when the price of oil is low and the level of domestic economic mismanagement is high. But are they enough to induce Tehran to reverse its very public commitment to uranium enrichment? That seems highly unlikely, no matter what sanctions are imposed (and this assumes Russia and China sign up for unprecedentedly harsh sanctions).

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