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Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

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A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

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Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

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When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

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We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Sanctioning Iran

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84Comments

  2. 2.

    demimondian

    OK, John — list the alternatives. The Brazil/Turkey plan would have been great…except it didn’t include cessation of enrichment. We don’t want to BOMB BOMB BOMB Iran, and we can’t manage a ground war against a mountainous nation of seventy million people, even if we wanted to…which we don’t.

  3. 3.

    Mike Kay

    ya know the thing about Palin is she’s so young, 46, that she’s a potential presidential candidate for the next 20 years.

    I think it’s hilarious that She, of all people, is now calling fro a goverment take over of BP and more federal regulation.

    Welcome to the class struggle against corportism, Comrade Sarah.

    Heh, the teabaggers/Birchers/Glibertarians are gonna get kick her out.

  4. 4.

    meh

    my understanding is that they are targeted sanctions – against specific companies and individuals doing dirt. This was one of the reasons that Libya came around – crushing sanctions on individuals which basically meant that no one in the world would do business with them – which is fine and all if you don’t mind using only national resources, but for these guys, kinda a pain in the ass since specific items aren’t manufactured by Iran and now these people, and companies, can’t buy them on the open market. If I’m not wrong, they might be blacklisted in general from all purchasing abroad – ala Cuba. That’s what broke the Libyans…

  5. 5.

    Brian J

    I have absolutely no idea what sort of possibilities there are for something like this, but why wouldn’t they ever look into expanding trade or doing something else that expands economic opportunity? It’s not as if the U.S. economy is without a need for assistance. I’m pretty sure the same can be said for the Iranian economy. And isn’t there pretty decent evidence that a growing, prosperous economy makes people want a democratic government, which if true would undermine the claims that it would strengthen the current regime.

  8. 8.

    FormerSwingVoter

    The impact is crippling Iran economically. You want nukes? Fine. You get to never trade anything with anyone anywhere in the world ever again, just like North Korea. Good luck with that.

  9. 9.

    DFS

    Yeh, so far as I can tell the function of sanctions is to not work, therefore necessitating military action. When non-interventionist types point out that sanctions never work (at achieving their stated goal, anyhow), they are mistaking a feature for a bug.

  14. 14.

    Bnut

    Man, I’m glad I got out of the military before this particular shit storm hits the fan. Rolling through Tehran in a Humvee sounds about like the worst thing ever.

  19. 19.

    some other guy

    I must be the only person in America who honestly doesn’t give a shit if Iran gets da bomb. If we can manage to deal with Khrushchev and Mao having da bomb, I think we can deal with Beardy McSportcoatandnotie. But then I’m not a “serious” person.

    The only downside would be that we wouldn’t be able to bully Iran into doing what we want anymore. So I can see why “serious” people would think yet another fucking war is necessary. Hell, what’s another 100,000 lives if it means maintaining American hegemony?

  25. 25.

    Mike Kay

    sanctions also played a major role in releasing US hostages from Iran in 1981. They needed the resources to fight the invading Iraqi army.

  28. 28.

    DFS

    Well, when Khadafy (or however the fuck you spell it) folded it was a little more complicated than just the effect of international sanctions. Also, he’s a special case, since he was and is perhaps the most gutless bitch in the entire semi-civilized world. He’s gotten his ass beat in border conflicts with nearly all of his neighbors, even Chad.

    Anyway, Libya’s reaction to sanctions is not a useful comparison as far as predicting Iran’s reaction to same.

  30. 30.

    FormerSwingVoter

    @Mike Kay:

    The sanctions on Iraq may prove both sides; he couldn’t get WMD’s, and it was used as a stepping stone for war. Everyone wins!

    Oh, wait.

  32. 32.

    Calouste

    @Mike Kay:

    ya know the thing about Palin is she’s so young, 46, that she’s a potential presidential candidate for the next 20 years.

    She needs to have a book published in her name every year to be able to afford the plastic surgery to stay a potential presidential candidate for the next 20 years.

  33. 33.

    micah616

    @some other guy: You’re not the only one.

    The problem is that so many people have it stuck in their heads that if Iran gets a nuclear device, the first thing that will happen is that Iran will use it on another Middle Eastern country that begins with the letter “I,” and I don’t mean Iraq.

    The same people who believe this can’t seem to wrap their minds around the fact that if Iran is willing to take to heat that will come from nuking Israel, then these sanctions are ultimately pointless and woefully ineffective as a deterrent.

  34. 34.

    fucen tarmal

    the iranians will greet us as liberators. unfortunately, the english word liberator has taken on the strong connotation of “motherfucker” in most of the region.

    sanctions will work, to back up the theocratic regime, once its peddled as a measure to take the heat off of israel.

  35. 35.

    AhabTRuler

    @meh:

    Yes, they worked with Libya.

    But Britain did a great deal of the heavy lifting in regards to Libya. We don’t really have a “good cop” mediator like that for NK or Iran.

  37. 37.

    Lev

    @Calouste: I really hope Sarah does run for president next year. When she gets creamed (and she will, badly), then maybe she can merely become a marginal but tolerated media presence like Pat Buchanan. I long for that world.

  38. 38.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @HyperIon: Worse, he did the longest GBCW in the history of online communcations followed by a couple of weeks of insisting he was absolutely done with internet politics on his own blog as an excuse to carp about John and Balloon Juice like a jealous and lovesick teen.

    Meanwhile, he never stopped showing up here and now the retards are welcoming him back when he never fucking left.

  39. 39.

    Mike Kay

    @Calouste: she’s got good genes. For someone how has pumped out 5 or 6 kids (i’m will sully in doubting the last one is hers) and yet it didn’t wreck her body. But yes, she’ll be pushing the envelope at age 66.

  40. 40.

    Derek

    @fucen tarmal: the iranians will greet us as liberators. unfortunately, the english word liberator has taken on the strong connotation of “motherfucker” in most of the region.

    I lolled.

  41. 41.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Iran is unhappy with the sanctions. Every time sanctions are proposed, Iran makes a gesture to try to stop them, the latest being the Turkey-Brazil agreement.

    That deal is still on the table, so diplomacy toward something better should be the next step, which is what The Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation is saying.

  42. 42.

    Xenos

    On the subject, this Huffpost seems worthy of note since so few Americans are aware of how much we did to turn Iran into a monster. Or that we did it on behalf of BP.

    I don’t believe in karma, but the damage in the Gulf makes it look like it may be in force.

  43. 43.

    Mike Kay

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Sad to see commenators on liberal blogs are as hateful as wingers. I guess Nader was right, there’s no difference btwn the far right and just some fuckhead.

  44. 44.

    AhabTRuler

    @fucen tarmal:

    the english word liberator has taken on the strong connotation of “motherfucker” in most of the region.

    When has it not? We have been “liberating” things for centuries.

  47. 47.

    uloborus

    @Lev:
    My completely inexpert belief is that she will get the nomination precisely for that reason. The GOP high mucky-mucks want her to flame out permanently so that she’s one less obstacle in getting the Teabag Revolution under control.

  51. 51.

    demimondian

    @John Cole: I think you’re saying that sanctions don’t work to destabilize governments. I agree — that’s completely true.

    The point of these sanctions is to slow down Iran’s progress towards a bomb, in the hope that they’ll decide to negotiate before they break through. In the meantime, sanctions press China and Russia to accept the possibility that a containment strategy will be necessary at some time in the future, so that if Iran *does* build a gadget, we won’t be starting from nothing. Both of those are reasonable diplomatic goals, and achievable through a regime of economic pressure.

    (Interestingly, China’s behavior is also consistent with that being their goal. In this case, the claim that they’re trying not to damage Iran’s economy is actually consistent with this strategy.)

  52. 52.

    demimondian

    @some other guy: Whether Iran would be able to threaten Israel — and that’s not at all clear — it would certainly become able to threaten all traffic through the Straits of Hormuz. It would become able to threaten Turkey (a NATO member, by the way, contra what many Republicans would like to remember).

    You get the picture. No, Iran with The Bomb wouldn’t really mean much to everybody’s favorite bogeyman. It would, however, mean a lot to a number of other countries.

  55. 55.

    eemom

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck:

    Ah! Been waiting for this happy reunion.

    Lots more people were glad to see the General return today than I suspect would be if — just to posit a hypothetical — Fuckhead were to fuck off for a couple of weeks.

    Might be worth a little experiment. Whaddaya say, Fuckhead?

  56. 56.

    elmo

    @some other guy:

    I must be the only person in America who honestly doesn’t give a shit if Iran gets da bomb.

    Nah. Not even close. But we’re not “serious people.” We didn’t quit after a half term as the Governor of the least populated state in the Union, and we don’t have a sinecure as analysts at Fox News. So we don’t count.

    Same people who were all “Green Revolution” a year ago are going to be “Bomb the dirty niggers Mooslims” next year. Fuck em all.

  58. 58.

    Keith G

    @eemom: I donno. I like the mix. Except for artless meanness and when Fuckhead, or others cross that line its easy just to quit scanning their efforts.

  61. 61.

    Svensker

    Apparently enough countries — read China, Russia, Brazil (and maybe Turkey? don tremember) — have finagled exceptions for certain things/companies that the sanctions won’t be very draconian. I have no link for this, just something my husband told me and there’s no way I’m asking cuz then I’ll get lecture #248b, again. But the hubster does read a lot on this issue and is usually fairly accurate. Enough sanctions to keep the “bomb Iran” crazies on their meds, for a while anyway, but not enough to really hurt.

  63. 63.

    Keith

    “Sanctions have done nothing yet still they try to get the BOMBsay they hate Israel! WE NEED TO INVADE!”

    Fixed.

  64. 64.

    some other guy

    @micah616:

    The problem is that so many people have it stuck in their heads that if Iran gets a nuclear device, the first thing that will happen is that Iran will use it on another Middle Eastern country that begins with the letter “I,” and I don’t mean Iraq.

    If Iran wanted to use WMDs on Israel (or pass them on to proxies like Hezbollah or Hamas to use) why wouldn’t they have done it with their existing chemical and biological weapons? I mean, if they’re so craaaaazy that they don’t care about the swift armageddon that the US would rain down upon them in the event of a WMD attack on Israel, what are they waiting for? They’ve got more than enough uranium to make some bitchin’ “dirty bombs.” Why would they dick around with the IAEA for a decade, giving Israel the opportunity to bomb them first?

  65. 65.

    some other guy

    @demimondian:

    Whether Iran would be able to threaten Israel—and that’s not at all clear—it would certainly become able to threaten all traffic through the Straits of Hormuz. It would become able to threaten Turkey (a NATO member, by the way, contra what many Republicans would like to remember).

    Fair enough. I actually have no problems with internationally agreed-upon sanctions to try to counter nuclear proliferation. I do, however, have a big problem even putting military options “on the table” over the possibility Iran could conceivably “threaten” to maybe do some bad stuff if it gets da bomb. Even granting that a nuclear Iran would be A Bad Thing ™, a war would be far, far worse for everyone involved.

  66. 66.

    some other guy

    @elmo:

    It sure feels lonely, though, doesn’t it? Even the supposed “liberal” conventional wisdom is that a bombing campaign should be considered if sanctions fail to deter.

  67. 67.

    Mike Kay

    @some other guy: also, if Iran is so craaaaasy, why didn’t they use wmds during the Iran-Iraq war, when they had sufficient cause to use wmds in retaliation.

  68. 68.

    PeakVT

    I think Iran would be a little less interested a nuclear program if the US didn’t have troops on three sides (well, two sides, really, with a lot of big boats floating around on the third). For some reason this proximity is rarely mentioned.

  69. 69.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    “Sanctions have done nothing yet still they try to get the BOMB! WE NEED TO INVADE!”

    Sadly, it might take something this insane to finally get the oligarchy to retrench the Empire.

  70. 70.

    Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill

    @some other guy:

    why wouldn’t they have done it with their existing chemical and biological weapons?

    Not that I’m disagreeing with your core point — having and using a nuke are VERY different things, and Iran’s gov’t are rational actors, far moreso than NK’s leadership.

    But a nuke is a Known Quantity; when it goes off, it’s going to hurt, and so long as you know the weather patterns, you know how fallout’ll go. There’s a reason Chemical and Biological weapons don’t get deployed much; they can be unpredictable, and the side-effects far harder to foresee on average. If that wasn’t the case, they’d get used a lot more, I promise you — including by the US, treaties or no.

  72. 72.

    Annie

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Seems to me that you are the “jealous and lovesick teen.” And, as a proud retard, I welcome the General back.

    @Loser Stuck:

    I will spread the word. Who the f… cares whether it is 13 or 13,000 hits? Exactly how many do you have?

  73. 73.

    demimondian

    @PeakVT: Um…yeah, no.

    Iran would be less interested in a nuclear program if Iran didn’t see it as a propaganda tool. Let’s be very clear here: Iran can get a nuclear arsenal like DPRK has — a very few, crude weapons. That’s enough to threaten shipping, but not enough to be militarily significant.

  74. 74.

    Jay C

    @some other guy:

    No, you’re not the only one: myself, I think Iran’s nuclear-weapon ambitions ( and I also believe their “peaceful-uses-only” blather is pure BS) are basically a huge waste of time, effort and money: at least if they focus on “civilian” power-generation they’ll get some electricity out of it: squandering resources on a-bombs may give them a quick cheap national ego-boost for a while but would it really make that much of a difference in the geopolitics/balance-of-power in the region?
    I think not – except, of course, that it would make us invading them more difficult.

    Oh, and I don’t think the Libyan precedent is all that useful a cite: I’m no expert on the Iranian economy by a long shot, buut I think it’s a safe bet that it’s way larger and more complex than Libya’s – the latter being the classic “petro-state” a small population inhabiting a vast, blasted uninhabitable desert and utterly dependent on oil revenues to buy themselves out of having live in shacks made of sticks. IF they had sticks, that is….

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    my Comcast will go on vacation for 3 months, and I will be walking away from the internet in total, for that period, at least. It is set. And hopefully develop a life outside of it and get some shit done that needs doing that I can’t seem to quit sitting in front of this addictive monster called the internet every spare minute of the day and night. Not just BJ, but all of it. It will be an experiment and adventure, and I am excited. Been considering doing this for months that has nothing to do with Balloon Juice. Now is the time.

    Man. I mean, if you can’t trust anonymous idiotic loudmouths on the intertubes, who can you trust?
    It’s kind of screwing with my head that somehow 3 months = 1 week.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    Hey Stuck!

    John,

    Sanctions have worked. They worked against S. Africa and they worked against Libya. Iran is a different place, so they’re not working as well, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work.

    I’ve always thought we had a pretty half-assed attitude toward the sanctions, however. We seem to be pretty lax about coming down on our companies that violate the sanctions – except for N. Korea and Cuba.

    At least one problem with the Iranian sanctions is that the general public, and in particular conservatives, cannot distinguish between Iranians and Iran (much as they cannot distinguish between Jews and Israel.) If we could adopt a positive attitude toward the people of Iran and a strong condemnation of their government, we might be able to get somewhere, but the powers that be just aren’t capable of such intellectual nuance and think that nuking them is the easier solution. Less thinking that way, apparently.

  77. 77.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    @Martin:

    The problem with sanctions often is that crafty dictators turn them around to blame all the countries problems on the evil outsiders making their lives miserable, sometimes causing the citizens of that country to rally around said dictator. Castro was and still is genius with this phenomenon. I tend to think a country like Iran they won’t work so well. Mostly because the citizens there mostly just want a loosening of the Theocratic grip the Mullah’s have imposed, they are still by and large very religious and conservative by our standards. Even the liberal ones.

  78. 78.

    SGEW

    Welcome back, Stuck. It’s always nice to have a l’il harmless drama once in a while. Just don’t let it get to you, eh?

  80. 80.

    Matt

    One tangible effect of sanctions is that Canada gets the talented Iranian graduate students.

  81. 81.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @demimondian:

    Iran would be less interested in a nuclear program if Iran didn’t see it as a propaganda tool.

    What actual evidence is there that Iran actually is interested in a nuclear weapons program?

    As far as I can tell, the evidence regarding Iran’s nuke ambitions is even weaker than the shit that Cheney made up about Iraqi WMD.

    It seems to pretty much amount to believing “they are crazy not to want nukes”.

    I’ve never had it explained to me in what ways Iran is violating the NNPT, and how that justifies taking any action against them, let alone sanctions.

  82. 82.

    Yutsano

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    I’ve never had it explained to me in what ways Iran is violating the NNPT, and how that justifies taking any action against them, let alone sanctions.

    The two big ones are:

    A) Not allowing inspections of nuclear facilities by the IAEA inspectors. When Iraq threw them out, Israel bombed their nuke facility. Instead, the US got Russia and China to finally go along with sanctions.

    B) The secret facility in Qom. One has little reason to hide a nuclear facility if one is really operating everything on the up and up.

    Don’t get me wrong, Israel needs to come clean on the fact that they have nukes. But Iran is going out of its way to act fishy for little rational reason.

  83. 83.

    SeanH

    It seems to pretty much amount to believing “they are crazy not to want nukes”.

    Yutsano got it right except for the “little rational reason” part. We’ve just conquered two countries bordering them and US troops are now based in countries across a large majority of their land border.

    The most powerful country in the history of the world has literally surrounded their nation with troops, has constantly threatened military attacks on them for decades, has recently turned so aggressive that they don’t even bother justifying invasions anymore, and also just happens to have a history of overthrowing their democratic governments.

    Of course they’re crazy not to want nukes. There’s nothing else they could possibly do to even minimally ensure their national security. I’m sure not siding with them, but I wish to God we’d wise up and realize our actions are half of the problem with Iran.

  84. 84.

    maus

    @Mike Kay:

    ya know the thing about Palin is she’s so young, 46, that she’s a potential presidential candidate for the next 20 years.

    You think her looks are going to carry her for the next ten?

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