By Sierra Rayne —— Bio and Archives May 5, 2015
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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.
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.
Sierra Rayne holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and writes regularly on environment, energy, and national security topics. He can be found on Twitter at @srayne_ca