The Endgame in Iran

As time runs out on the US effort to talk Iran out of acquiring nuclear weapons, attention has shifted to the UN Security Council’s attempts to impose sanctions on Iran. Will sanctions be approved? If so, will they be effective? Russia and China’s reluctance to impose sanctions implies the necessity of substantial bargaining. Moreover, historically speaking, sanctions are likely to prove ineffective, especially in Iran’s case where time is on their side.

The Middle East is nearing a strategic crossroads: Within the next 18 months or so the decisions taken by different actors will affect issues far beyond the area itself; and time is running out. Last year’s discovery of a covert enrichment plant near Qom is probably only the tip of the iceberg; for the first time in its dealings with Iran the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently openly accused Tehran of developing nuclear weapons. Many experts now estimate that the country is at most one to two years away from acquiring a functioning nuclear device. And, judging from the regime’s increasingly defiant tone, it has no intention whatsoever to diverge from its stated policy of becoming a “nuclear nation”—one that has mastered a sufficient share of civilian nuclear technology to put nuclear weapons well within its grasp.

As time runs out and the Obama administration definitively gives up on its short-lived attempt at dialogue with Tehran, attention will again shift to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), starting with renewed Western attempts to impose sanctions on the Iranian regime in the coming weeks and months. Proposals on the table include various restrictions on institutions and persons connected with the regime, and in particular, its core support base in the Revolutionary Guard. Notably, however, recent statements have been shifting towards a whole-scale embargo on Iran’s oil industry—blocking Iranian imports of refined fuels, which it cannot produce itself, and technical supplies, and perhaps also blocking oil exports from Iran with other producers making up for the shortfall.

A two-fold question arises. First, whether such sanctions would be approved by all veto-wielding UNSC members, especially Russia and China; and second, whether such sanctions would be effective. The historical evidence is stacked against both of these possibilities. Russia and China have a long track record of being reluctant in imposing sanctions on regimes deemed “rogue” by the United States and the West. Both also have serious misgivings about the effectiveness of sanctions in general, and in Iran’s particular case, both governments described them as counterproductive on numerous occasions. While no country, including Moscow and Beijing, would be interested in the serious damage a nuclear Iran could cause to regional stability and the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), both have interests in Iran that would be affected directly by a UNSC decision to that effect. Russia is a major trading partner; China has invested heavily in Iran’s oil industry in recent years.

Any imposition of sanctions would therefore involve considerable horse-trading as well as probable linkages with other issues that affect great power relations today—with Moscow and Beijing trying to extract Western concessions in matters not necessarily connected to Iran in return for cutting themselves in the flesh. This does not exclude the possibility of sanctions being ultimately pushed through at the right price. Russia’s position in particular has begun to shift in recent weeks with the foreign ministry expressing alarm at the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and Russian defense contractors delaying the delivery of the state-of-the-art S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to the Islamic Republic, ostensibly for “technical reasons.” Still, Moscow could very easily return to its original position—and China is maintaining its traditional line emphasizing the importance of a negotiated settlement.

But even if tough sanctions came into force their effect would be highly ambiguous: The historical track record of sanctions—be they of the smart or, if you will, “dumb” variety—is highly dubious. Even in cases where they have had the time to affect elites, economies and societies, they have usually not achieved their desired result in terms of changing regime behavior. The luxury of time is certainly absent in the case of Iran, and the kind of sanctions that are currently being advocated might end up accelerating rather than stopping its nuclear program. Past and current embargoes on dual-use technology may hamper Iran’s nuclear quest from the supply side, but ultimately, its drivers on the demand side remain unaddressed: Nuclear weapons, once acquired, are a watertight guarantee of regime security from external threat. This is, and will remain, the primary driver of Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the foreseeable future, sanctions or no sanctions.

Some have clung on to the idea that an oil embargo would bring about the current regime’s downfall. Certainly, a whole-scale boycott of Iranian petroleum products would hurt Iran’s oil-dependent economy in an unprecedented way, thereby undermining Iran’s ability to provide for its population. This line of thinking, however, makes three highly uncertain assumptions. First, regime change would be dependent upon the regime’s loss of control; instead, an embargo may very well give its hardliners carte blanche for even bloodier repression than has been seen up to now in the name of “national security.” Second, the assumption is also that Iran would not resist any such development. The odds are, however, that Iran would respond by using one or all of its many options—Hamas and Hezbollah come to mind, but Iraq, Afghanistan and Hormuz are also definite possibilities should the regime be backed into a corner.

The third assumption is that the regime would fall before it actually managed to obtain “the bomb.” But if anything, an oil embargo might increase the demand-side factor in Tehran’s nuclear quest—North Korea has clearly shown how the dynamics of inter-state interaction change before and after a state goes nuclear. Before, regime destabilization remains an option; after, it becomes a folly. Among the “international community’s” greatest contemporary nightmares are those of a destabilized North Korea and Pakistan. Iran probably knows that a destabilized nuclear Iran would potentially generate equal fear into the hearts of Western policymakers, even more so, than a stable nuclear Iran, which is all the more reason to obtain the bomb quickly; for once you cross the nuclear threshold, the kinds of sanctions that actually engender regime change become irrational, providing ample opportunity for brinkmanship.

If one assumes sanctions to be either unattainable or ineffective, the choice becomes one between the two evils of nuclear deterrence and military action—and it is not a straightforward one to make. The views of nuclear deterrence as a regional stabilizer are controversial at best; they also come at the price of either abandoning the NPT, thereby allowing nukes to proliferate freely in the region, or the extension of America’s nuclear umbrella, not to mention the incomparable consequences of potential deterrence failure. The military option, on the other hand, would carry with it the certainty of regional destabilization, probably with global repercussions, and great uncertainty in terms of its chances for success. In the absence of reliable intelligence—a rare commodity indeed—military strikes would at best delay Iran’s nuclear capability.

But this is exactly what might make the military option a more rational, or less irrational, choice in combination with sanctions. If embargoes are perceived to take a long time to work, a hit on Iran’s nuclear facilities might be seen as extending the possibility for sanctions to work, even if it only ends up delaying its nuclear status. Considering the fact that Israel, as a “free agent,” might actually be both able and willing to carry out such strikes, it becomes clear to what extent this is a situation fraught with danger. And, in view of all the certainties and potentialities involved, it seems the next few years will be undesirably interesting for all.