The effectiveness of sanctions can only be measured against their aims. The fourth round of Security Council sanctions, targeted this time against Iran’s nuclear industry, will not bring the country’s economy crashing to its knees nor will it seriously dent the hardliner’s drive toward nuclear weapons.

The latest round includes restrictions and penalties on banks and insurance companies, shipping and a list of companies involved in Iran’s nuclear program and an embargo on conventional arms shipments to Iran.

What then are the aims of these sanctions? The most important one is to send a signal to Iran’s rulers, a signal which also reflects the strength of will of the international community to stop this regime from pursuing nuclear proliferation, and instead to return in good faith to the negotiating table. It sends a signal that much of the world is united in this endeavour, and will continue to press its case. The degree of unity achieved by Security Council members in voting for the sanctions resolution increases the power of the message many times over.

Iran’s immediate response has been dismissive. The signal is strong, but not yet strong enough and will need to be intensified in order to stand a chance of being effective. There are dangers that some of the signatories to the resolution may decide they have reached the peak of their commitment to change Iran’s course of action; the fourth round of sanctions could be only a spike, leading to a weakening of the signal in months to come.

Part of the impetus toward new sanctions was siphoned off when a unanimous resolution was rendered impossible by the failed Turkish-Brazilian proposal to send Iran’s enriched uranium to Turkey. This plan was deemed unacceptable because it allowed Iran to keep almost half its stockpile while permitting its turbines to keep turning. At the moment things are moving forward. Unilateral sanctions by the US and EU are being prepared. The cumulative effect of the unilateral and multi-lateral sanctions may have enough of an effect to bring about change of the desired sort.

Ultimately the outcome depends on the strength of political will in the world. The process since Obama’s election has been diplomacy-led but diplomats only do what is asked of them by governments; they can convey messages and broker agreements, but the determination to bring about change must come originally from the public and the political classes.

The degree of determination is a reflection of perceptions about the regime’s character and intentions. About this there is considerable debate and inconsistency. Some feel that Iran is a threat and should not be trusted with the bomb, others are resigned to it and counsel appeasement. This sends a mixed message to Iran’s ultra-conservatives, and it is the strength of the signal to which they are primarily attuned. As I have argued elsewhere (Progressonline, 20 April, 2010) the essential character of the regime is such that it cannot be appeased without the risk of dire peace and security consequences.

The public and politicians have not really made up their minds about the regime. They see now more clearly how oppressive it has become, but they are still in the process of connecting the dots to see how the regime’s unpopularity translates into an increased level of danger.The connection is that this is a regime with its back to the wall, with few options. The nuclear program is the one issue which keeps the hardliners united. The drive for nuclear weapons is therefore largely led by domestic concerns, and if it were to get the bomb it would be in a stronger position to expand its influence, another popular dream of the hardliners, which could lead to military confrontations.

War with a nuclear armed Iran would be fraught with dangers for all the world. Ironically, the recent sanctions in some ways increase the risks. By imposing an embargo on conventional weapons it increases the possibility of an eventual use of nuclear weapons. This danger has been cited by Shahram Chubin, a noted expert on Iran’s nuclear program, who in a recent book on the subject (Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions, 2006) stated that one reason Iran wants the bomb is to compensate for the weakness of its conventional forces which means that ‘Iran runs the risk of lowering the threshold of nuclear weapons use.’

It is a greater appreciation of these dangers which is needed in order to stiffen resolve against Tehran’s drive toward proliferation. Yet an appreciation of this is too slow in coming. There are a number of obstacles, which Iran is well aware of, and which it is hoping will erode firmness of purpose across the world. There is a concern by many not to appear to be Islamophobic when dealing with an Islamic regime. The fact that the hardliners are probably about as representative of the average Muslim as the BNP is of the average Briton is not sufficiently appreciated.

There is also the fact that the nukes being sought would be in the hands of a government other than the US or Britain, which creates a feeling of detachment in some, based in part on the fact that Iran is a country which was previously a colony of Britain and has suffered US interference in its internal affairs. Another factor is that the nuclear issue has been overtaken by environmental concerns in many areas of the world, and that false optimism has been created by nuclear arms agreements.

Sensitivity to issues such as Islamophobia and the effects of past western meddling is part of the solution, yet at the same time we are more than ever before living in a world in which threats are global and much less predictable and containable than in the old two superpower world in which we once lived. The growth of terrorism and the desire of terrorists to acquire the bomb, the fact that, according to a recent UN report North Korea is exporting nuclear technology to Iran and that A.Q. Khan the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist according to his own testimony has also been helping Tehran ought to put the nuclear issue near the top of the list of the world’s most urgent concerns again.

The resolve to counter the new nuclear threat probably requires the same sort of zeal as was generated by the Aldermaston marchers in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, or the anti-Cruise missile protests of the ‘80’s, yet we are nowhere near seeing this level of popular enthusiasm.

This is still only the beginning of the struggle to keep nukes out of the hands of the hardliners because there is so much more to do. There is the effort to encourage compliance with the new sanctions, to create effective unilateral sanctions and possible further multilateral ones and to create public understanding of the issues. Sanctions on their own may fail; sanctions plus a strong political will stand a good chance of success.

Photo: asterix611 2009