Largely Ineffective Sanctions Against Iran

For those who believe that sanctions on Iran have made substantial progress towards their stated goals, a recent report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) is illuminating. The report reviews the sanctions applied against Iran by various entities and then critically examines their actual impacts. The results are not promising for those who believe sanctions are an effective tool with which to exert serious geopolitical pressure.

The report acknowledges that "Iran's acceptance of the JPA [Joint Plan of Action; the interim nuclear agreement that has been in effect since 20 January 2014] and progress in the talks on a comprehensive nuclear accord are widely considered evidence that sanctions helped produce a possible shift in Iran's nuclear policies." However, as the report discusses, these perceptions differ from reality. Iran's nuclear and other WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs continued to advance despite the sanctions, suggesting that whatever impacts the sanctions had on Iran's ability to procure needed materials and knowledge was incomplete:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has testified that Iran continues to expand the scale, reach, and sophistication of its ballistic missile arsenal, and on March 16, 2014, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Vann Van Diepen said that Iran was still 'very actively' creating front companies and engaging in other activity to conceal procurement.

In terms of conventional military capabilities, the sanctions may have hindered Iran's ability to acquire new and replacement equipment on the international market, but in response, Iran's improving in-house military production capacity has at least partially offset these impacts -- including the development of short range ballistic and cruise missiles. States that are ignoring U.N. sanctions against Iran, such as North Korea, are also likely supplying it with advanced weaponry including smaller ships and small submarines.

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Many policy analysts felt the decline in oil prices since mid-2014 would seriously # Iran's abilities to finance its operations abroad. The CRS report suggests otherwise:

To date, neither sanctions nor oil prices that have fallen nearly 50% since June 2014 appear to have materially reduced Iran's ability to arm militant movements in the Middle East and to provide military equipment and advisers to the embattled governments of Syria and Iraq. In December 2014, one of Iran's Vice Presidents stated that Iran's economic support for Syria would continue uninterrupted despite the fall in oil prices since June 2014. Iran reportedly has continued to export arms to the Shiite rebel Houthi faction in Yemen and to militant Palestinian Islamist factions, and has sought to supply arms to radical Shiite factions in Bahrain.

The Iranian government's capabilities to monitor and censor the Internet have not been diminished by the sanctions. Both the U.S. State Department and the U.N. Special Rapporteur agree that no improvement in human rights practices has been observed in the country since sanctions took effect. As well, there has not been any significant or sustained protests within Iran in response to any effects of the sanctions, and the 2009 unrest is now attributed to the repression and fraud surrounding the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rather than any sanctions-related impacts. The independent CRS report supports what many of the more hawkish policy analysts have been warning about for years, not just regarding Iran but also against other troublesome actors such as North Korea and Russia -- sanctions are an ineffective tool on their own for achieving complex geopolitical objectives.