WASHINGTON—No one knows if the international sanctions against Iran will persuade the Islamic Republic to back away from making a nuclear weapon, but there is no doubt that the sanctions are having a big impact on life in Iran.
The precipitous fall in value of Iran’s currency, the rial, and the loss of oil customers have to be unsettling to the country’s leadership. Recent protests on the streets over the currency plunge indicate that sanctions are taking a heavy toll on ordinary people.
The economic sanctions on Iran are “the single most comprehensive sanctions ever imposed on any country in peacetimes,” said Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Iran Task Force at the Atlantic Council think tank.
The sanctions on Iran are without precedent, “far greater than those imposed on South Africa, for example,” Eizenstat, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton. He spoke Oct. 4 at the Atlantic Council when he introduced an expert panel to discuss “Rethinking Policy Towards Iran.”
Eizenstat outlined the consequences if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon. The nuclear non-proliferation would be shredded. It would set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Iran could provide a nuclear umbrella to support terrorist groups.
Eizenstat said that the sanctions are in many ways a “test whether the sanctions can be an effective use of nonmilitary means to achieve a political end.”
Eizenstat pointed out that Europe is taking this matter seriously. Medium-range missiles can already reach parts of Eastern Europe and Israel. The European Union tightened its energy sanctions, barring 18 percent of its total oil imports.
