Oil sanctions against Iran will not be enough

Western policymakers, buoyed by their success in reducing Iran?s oil exports , appear content to give sanctions more time to work, in the hope that once Tehran feels their full effect negotiators will return to the table, more ready to compromise.

The evidence, however, suggests that sanctions? effect on oil exports will not increase over time.

First, Western policymakers tend to focus more on what Iran has lost than what it has retained or gained. That?s fine for a political debate but bad for making sensible policy. It is true that Iran?s oil exports have declined from 2.5 million barrels per day to 1.5 million. But that reduced level is hardly meager: Iran is still one of the world?s top oil exporters, from which it earns billions in hard currency. And nothing suggests that the drop in earnings has stunted Iran?s nuclear program, which is the target of Western ire. Iran is enriching uranium faster and to higher levels than ever before. If any party appears to feel a need to compromise, it is the ?P5 + 1? (the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany). They have dropped demands that Iran fully halt enrichment in favor of requesting that it merely cap enrichment at a low level.

Furthermore, the historical evidence does not suggest that sanctions? effect on regimes grows over time. Numerous examples ? including Moammar Gaddafi?s Libya, Saddam Hussein?s Iraq and present-day North Korea ? demonstrate that such regimes are resilient and can hold out for a long time in the face of sanctions ? and can even adapt to or circumvent them. There is also good reason to believe that states that reluctantly complied with oil sanctions will not make further reductions and may even increase oil imports from Iran as economic activity ? and thus oil demand ? recovers. Recent data suggest that Chinese oil purchases from Iran have increased despite a dropoff in the first quarter of this year.

Michael Singh is managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2005 to 2008, he worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council.

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Source: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=417307

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