Blunt Force
Economic sanctions - the iron fist part of international diplomacy - have proven to be at best a blunt instrument, typically dismally ineffective in undermining regimes by attempting to starve them of resources normally obtained through trade and capital flows. Thus, for example, over nearly a half century, Americans have been prohibited from trading with, investing in, or traveling to Cuba. And while there is little doubt this embargo has contributed to the poor and dysfunctional Cuban economy (though the damage done by the government's central planning is far worse), the Castro brothers and their tiny ruling elite are, after all these decades, still in place. Indeed, the big, bad Americans and their sanctions have provided, if anything, just the excuse needed by the Castros for the glaring failures of their socialism.
Much the same can be said for economic sanctions against other dictatorships, such as Burma, North Korea and Iran - there have always been other governments, firms and individuals - notably Chinese - willing to fill the void left by an American embargo. But, in the case of Iran, the news this week is that sanctions may finally have begun to work, precisely because America has not been alone in applying them. American trade restrictions, initiated at the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and progressively broadened since 2006 to include, among others, international financial firms doing business with Tehran, became all the more effective when the United Nations, concerned that Iran refused to halt uranium enrichment and co-operate with the IAEA, joined in with their own progression of four Resolutions in the period 2006-10. Then, in 2010, the European Union began a series of Iranian asset freezes, and travel and oil import bans. Many individual countries initiated similar restrictions; even China and India agreed to at least reduce their imports of Iranian oil, or pay for it in their local currencies instead of US dollars.
Such a broad application of sanctions over many years has exacted considerable harm on the Iranian economy. Its domestic politics changed as well - Hassan Rouhani won (more accurately, was allowed to win) Iran's presidential election last June in part because he promised to work for an easing of sanctions. The Iranian economy is a mess. Iranian oil export revenues (which have accounted for as much as half of total government expenditure) have dropped precipitously in recent years. Gross Domestic Product is falling and unemployment is soaring. And isolation from the international banking system has caused the rial, Iran's currency, to drop by two-thirds against the US dollar. Perhaps most worrying for the Ayatollah's theocracy, general price inflation is 40%, and even higher for fuel and foodstuffs, rates which threaten the nation's social fabric if not the onset of ruinous hyper-inflation.
Seen in this context, the Iranians eager participation in the round of talks in Geneva regarding their nuclear program, with the emergence last Sunday of an initial Agreement that eases some sanctions and temporarily halts their further uranium enrichment, is hardly surprising. And the American Congress - wary of Iran's sincerity - is making it very clear that if compliance is not complete, and if further progress to a final Agreement over the next few months is not evident, the relaxation of certain sanctions will be reversed and then further strengthened.
Seems, at least concerning Iran, the blunt tool of foreign policy is not so blunt, or ineffective, after all.