The Unintended Consequences of More Sanctions Against Iran

By Jason Margolis

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for tighter sanctions on Iran in an interview with the BBC Persian service Wednesday. She said Iran is among the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world because it continues to defy the United Nations over the country’s nuclear programs.

Clinton did concede that sanctions are a blunt instrument.

“I am aware that from time to time, certain sanctions can be difficult for totally innocent people going about their daily lives. But I would ask you to put yourself in the position of the international community and those who seek a better future inside Iran.” ...

... Ibrahim Warde with the Fletcher School at Tufts University says the story of the Iranian students illustrates one point: It’s not that hard to get around the sanctions.

“An easy thing to do when you’re a tourist in Iran is to go to rug merchants and ask them, ‘OK, if I were to ship 20 of your carpets to the US, how would I do it?’ And then they would say, ‘Well, it’s very easy, because we have sister company in Turkey, or in Malaysia, or in Iraq. And what we’ll do is, we’ll do the billing thru these companies.’”

Those may just be carpets we’re talking about. But Warde says, in general, sanctions aren’t that effective if the rest of the world doesn’t cooperate.

“And there are always countries that are willing to help Iran and unwilling to go along with the sanctions.”

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