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Making Iran Feel the Pain

[Wall Street Journal] Matthew Levitt - For graduated sanctions to be effective, each deadline that passes without a change in Iran's behavior must be followed by another, more severe round of sanctions. To date, sanctions have had a primarily psychological impact, producing discontent within the powerful merchant classes and civil servants. Failure to follow up with tougher sanctions would undermine whatever progress sanctions have had to date. The danger is that today's diplomacy produces only more symbolic measures, watered down by multilateral negotiations whose goal is international consensus. To avoid such failure, this round should fill the gaps left open by the first two UN resolutions. Specifically, it can target additional Iranian banks, and focus on companies controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially those involved in the oil and gas sectors. The writer, a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence and Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department.
2007-07-02 01:00:00
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