Sanctions – They’re Working!
David Ignatius wrote an interesting column for yesterday’s Washington Post (I’m afraid that I didn’t have time to link to it yesterday – but because it’s about such an important subject I decided to link to link to it today) about sanctions. He starts off by writing that the conventional wisdom is that sanctions don’t work: just look at – for instance – Cuba (but also Iraq under Saddam may I add). However, it now seems that “a new variety of sanctions” are working in the “recent cases of North Korea and Iran.”
As you all know, I’m not exactly a firm believer in the effectiveness of sanctions. They have, quite simply, not worked well enough in the past. Recent developments, however, do – as David points out – indicate that sanctions can work, even in quite exceptional cases like that of Iran and North Korea. Obviously I’m still not a ‘believer’, but I am more open to it and believe that further sanctions should be persued in the case of Iran: it seems that the sanctions are encouraging reformers to oppose Ahmadinejad and to call for moderation in Iran’s foreign policy.
So, why are the new type of sanctions effective, where the ‘old type’ were not?
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9 Responses to “Sanctions – They’re Working!”
Sorry, but there’s no evidence the sanctions brought North Korea to the table, unless you’re including the threat of unilateral Chinese sanctions.
Iran is as defiant as ever, so how exactly have sanctions “worked?”
Iran is defiance hides a couple of facts. Their economy is a mess, with the oil infrastructure the key to getting out of the hole, a bigger mess. The nuke program is a Ptotemkin village, grams of LEU hide the facts of BIG engineering problems at all levels of the enrcihment cycle. While it’s a threat, much of the military is US in origin and sits useless without spare parts. Iran is the current Lex Luther for the politicians and the press. Their support of terror groups is the main problem, but not much we can do anything about.
The relevant question is not whether ‘super glue’ sanctions can hurt the target, but whether such sanctions (or any sanctions) can and will hurt enough to force the target to comply fast enough with whatever you want them to do.
And while North Korea may have been hurt by these sanctions, that doesn’t prove that these sanctions (or any of the others that have been imposed on North Korea) are responsible for North Korea’s supposed willingness to start behaving… and even if it did, there’s no guarantee that imposing such sanctions on Iran will have the same result. North Korea doesn’t have the power or the friends that Iran does by virture of Iran’s exporting a couple of million (right qty?) barrels a day. Furthermore, North Korea and Iran have different reasons for doing what they’ve been doing and, as such, Iran may be willing to tolerate a whole lot more (or less) pain than North Korea was wlling to tolerate.
It’s fine to try non-military means of safeguarding one’s safety (see Shaun, it’s not always bombs away). But why try them unless you have a real good reason to believe that such things will work or that you have enough time to come up with something else when plan A is proven ineffective?
In the case of Iran, I don’t believe any sanctions will work: partly because our supposed allies will never agree to anything serious and partly because Iran is very committed to getting themselves a bomb and thus willing to tolerate a whole bunch of hurt. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to spend trying all the things that will make Shaun happy.
Rudi: I’m not a big follower of Superman, but didn’t Lex Luther pose a real threat? Perhaps, to better fit your story line, it might be better to describe them as the Bird Flu or Brittney Spears shaving her head or the Yankees buying the World Series with their $200 million payroll or something else that got people all worked up but turned out to be much ado about nothing?
Steve: my points is – well one of the points I try to make – is that I’m becoming more positive about sanctions. That doesn’t mean that I think that they’ll solve everything – what I do say is give it a chance, it’s definitely worth a serious try because it could work.
Also note, Entropy, that I did not write “they’ve worked”. I wrote “they’re working”. The former implies that all is dealt with, the latter doesn’t.
To add: they seem to be working right now. Lets continue on this path. More sanctions, etc. It might just do the trick. If not – one should be willing to use military force if is truly necessary.
Michael:
Sure, they ‘could’ work, but shouldn’t the standard be whether we think there’s a reasonable likelihood that they ‘will’ work?
And I presume that to the extent you say they’re ‘working’, you mean that sanctions are causing some degree of discomfort… but shouldn’t the test be whether they’ll cause enough pain… and before Iran has and uses their nukes?
If I may, let me put you on the spot: do you believe the sanctions now in place will cause Iran to back down? If so, how long will it take? If not, do you believe there is a yet-to-be-but-can-and-will-be-imposed set of sanctions that will lead Iran to back down? And if so, what are those sanctions and how long will that process take? And if not, then what do you believe we’re gaining by going through this whole talking and sanctions dance?
And I’ll extend the invitation to your contributors (Shaun?) and readers as well.
In response to what and when?
I guess it depends on your definition of “working.” If you mean the sanctions are creating hardship in the country, then yes, they are probably working. If you mean that sanctions are changing the policies of the target countries, then they are not “working.” Maybe they will work eventually, but in the case of Iran, I doubt it. Consider what the head Iranian nuclear negotiator said back in 2004:
Our recent deal with India only cemented the above in the minds of the Iranian leadership. They believe that once they’ve achieved their goal, the world will have to deal with them and sanctions will go away. So expect the Iranians to stall and drag things out while they steadily progress.