GAO: Iran Sanctions Ineffective

by Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium: Thu., Jan 17, 2008
Filed under: War Making and Oversight

Twenty years of unilateral sanctions against Iran and what do we have to show for it? Very little, according to this freshly released GAO report.

"[T]he overall impact of sanctions, and the extent to which these sanctions further U.S. objectives, is unclear. On the other hand, some evidence, such as foreign firms signing contracts to invest in Iran’s energy sector and Iran's continued proliferation efforts, raise questions about the extent of the sanctions' impact."

The report was commissioned by Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), who is now the ranking member on the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. The panel is chaired by Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) who, during the fall, held three hearings examining the various ways in which U.S.-Iran relations are flawed.

At those hearings, Shays tended to cast the foreign policy options available to the United States as a choice between increasingly hostile tactics: diplomacy, sanctions, and violence. And unsurprisingly, the often-hawkish Republican wasn't keen on a traditional diplomatic approach. By my count, then, the ineffectiveness of the unilateral sanctions regime leaves Shays and his allies in Congress to advocate for one of two approaches: a broad program aimed at convincing international institutions–the same ones the government has spent the last seven years ridiculing–to impose multilateral sanctions (on trade and arms and so forth), or regime change.

So! What's the appetite like in the rest of the world for imposing–without first attempting a good-faith program of negotiations–the sort of sanctions that would cripple the Iranian economy? GAO: "Iran's overall trade with the world has grown since the U.S. imposed sanctions." Um. Not particularly high.

Which is all to say that if there ever any doubt about the feasibility of the White House’s Iran strategy, this report should clear all that right up. The president may not have much of an appetite for negotiating, but the country doesn't have much of an appetite for another war, and the current volley (what you might call "Shays' middle option") has has come back to Earth with a resounding thud.