Insight: Sanctions Dilemmas

In the aftermath of last month’s Geneva agreement, US President Barack Obama emphasized that Iran will experience a minuscule amount of sanctions relief, in exchange for a stop in its nuclear program.

 

But in a little-noticed provision of the agreement, Tehran quietly secured sanctions relief that could have a direct and immediate impact on ordinary Iranians: easing of restrictions on both the sale of airplane spare parts, and medical equipment.

 

The story of sanctions on aviation and medicine illustrate the complexity of implementing sanctions that aim to target the Iranian regime but not its people, and experts believe that the reduction in these sanctions will to varying degrees empower the Iranian government.

 

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Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Washington- based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that Tehran deserves a large share of the blame. In particular, he said, there is evidence of massive government inefficiency and instances of price-fixing on the part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

 

Because the Iranian government has pushed blame on the West for the supply problem, Ottolenghi said, the relaxing of sanctions is a victory for Tehran.

 

“Iran has scored a propaganda point on the subject by forcing Western powers to ease the export control regime, in order to let a more robust flow of medicine supplies to Iran,” he wrote in an email.

 

“That, incidentally, raises the risk of proliferation,” he said, because relaxed sanctions make it easier for illicit transactions to occur.

 

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