Iran V: Sanctions
Competition
AHC
March 16
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, 2012 Another key uncertainty is just how much the impact of the new sanctions will affect the Iranian people and their attitudes towards the regime and the states that impose such sanctions. Iran faces many other long-standing economic problems, including major barriers to efficient investment, massive youth unemployment, and inflationary cycles. It must also deal with an uncertain transition out of government-funded subsidies. The impact of new sanctions will add to all of these problems, and much of the burden will fall on the Iranian people. The full impact of this burden, and its domestic implications, will not become clear until after mid 2012. It is clear from Iranian media, however, the people are as aware as the government that sanctions are having a steadily more significant effect on Iran’s ability to interact with international financial institutions and increased the diplomatic costs for Tehran’s trading partners. Irrespective of whether the Iranian economy is “crippled,” sanctions clearly do function as a strategic tool in putting pressure on Iran, and have further isolated Iran in the international arena.
Arms Control: Iran, Israel, and the WMD Free Zone Arms control is another aspect of US and Iranian diplomatic competition which is tied to both the military developments described in Chapters III and IV, and to the negotiating leverage that sanctions and US military strengthen in the Gulf can apply. The US and other members of the 5+1 have long sought to use both sanctions and arms control it to limit Iran’s nuclear programs. Iran, in turn, has seen a WMD Free Zone in the Middle East as a way of putting pressure on the US and Israel, gaining Arab support, and limiting Arab pressure on Iran over Iran’s nuclear programs.
Efforts to Negotiate with Iran While the US and Israel have both stated in different ways that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, no state has announced fixed “red lines” that would trigger preventive attacks, and “unacceptable” has been a distinctly relative term that has evolved over time. It is also clear that any limits that Iran agrees to as a result of sanction and negotiations must be tied to some form of arms control protocol and verification arrangement based on the capabilities Iran has at the time of the actual agreement, and can acquire in the future. The history of past negotiations is complex, but the Arms Control Association has developed an excellent summary history that shows the pattern of negotiations to date. This history is shown in Figure V.15: Figure V.15: Arms Control Association History of Official Proposals on the Iranian Nuclear Issue. Spring 2003 Proposal According to Tim Guldimann, former Swiss ambassador to Tehran, Iran issued a proposal to the United States in May 2003 calling for negotiations on a variety of contentious issues between the two countries. The document listed a number of agenda items that the two countries would negotiate and proposed the creation of three parallel working groups to carry out negotiations on disarmament, regional security, and economic cooperation. Key among the agenda items were: •
Relief of all U.S. sanctions on Iran
•
Cooperation to stabilize Iraq
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