Iran V: Sanctions
March 13, 2012
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A period of confrontation and sanctions that lasted for several years would give Iran time to steadily improve its options and tactics for asymmetric attacks and political warfare, and evidence that Iran actually had a nuclear weapon might both lead many nations to abandon sanctions and make the credibility of US, European, and Southern Gulf escalation major conflicts and strikes on Iran less credible. Iran would take risks of its own, and it has no inherent advantages in playing the “long game.” Most such Iranian action would inevitably strengthen US, European, and Southern Gulf resolve, and support for sanctions. Iran would pay a steadily higher cumulative cost as a result of sanctions over time, and popular support for the regime might well erode. Iran cannot be certain it can ever use lower level asymmetric tactics without provoking the US and other states to escalate to much higher levels of conflict, or be certain it can control the course of events and the risk of some incident leading to higher levels of conflict. Israel may find it harder and harder to conduct a preventive strike over time against Iran as Iran disperses and hardens its facilities, and if it eventually deploys nuclear weapons. However, Israel has far more near and mid-term options to improve its nuclear forces, and nuclear delivery options than Iran, and Iran has already pushed Israel into extending the rang-payload of its missiles and examining options like submarine delivered nuclear weapons. While Iran can improve its asymmetric forces and move forward in developing nascent nuclear forces, nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already begun to build up their conventional strike and defense capabilities at far faster rates that Iran, and Iran cannot dismiss the possibility it will provoke the US into some form of clear commitment to “extended deterrence” or Saudi Arabia into pursuing its own nuclear option. Iran would also risk Israel or the US turning to preventive military options as sanctions failed to have their desired effect, and doing so with growing support from Iran’s neighbors. At a different level, Iran would risk shifts in investment and energy developments that favored other exporters, ranging for oil and gas development to pipelines and export facilities. High prices would favor the Arab Gulf states as long as they had much greater freedom to invest and export, they have would have no reason to support Iran in OPEC, and they would face fewer restrictions on their arms imports. In the short to mid-term, Iran might see its oil and gas export capacity drop because it could not get the technology and capital it needs, or its costs rise per unit of actual production In the long run, Iran’s impact in creating sustained high price pressures might favor competition from gas fracturing and alternative liquids. The other side of the coin is what happens if --and after -- Iran tests a nuclear device or makes claims to have one that US, other Western, Arab, and Israeli intelligence experts accept. Pakistan, North Korea, and India are all cases where major political efforts to halt their nuclear programs faded quickly after their nuclear capability became a fact, and the world ended in de facto acceptance. This may not be the case for Iran, but Iran is certainly aware that other states have not only won the “long game,” but eventually benefited from it in terms of both regional power and influence and the ability to use nuclear capability as leverage in dealing with their neighbors and even the US. In contrast, a Libya whose regime gave up weapons of mass destruction is an example of exactly the opposite kind.
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