Warren, Brett_Iran Sanctions Essay

Bombs Away The Effectiveness of U.S. Sanctions on Persuading Iran to Abandon its Nuclear

Program

By Brett Warren

Bombs Away: The Effectiveness of U.S. Sanctions on Persuading Iran to Abandon its Nuclear Weapons Program

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Abstract

I remember hearing and reading about the Iran Nuclear Deal a lot during the summer of

2015. I was shocked that the we, the United States, was actually negotiating with Iran, the

Islamic Republic that had been one of our banes of existence in the Middle East since 1979.

Why? I thought. What possessed the president to pursue such a naïve and dangerous

agreement? Why would he trust the Ayatollah?

I was both puzzled and frustrated at the situation. But, when given the opportunity in my

“Foreign Policy of the U.S. (PLIR 3400)” to write my final paper on any topic of my choosing, I

decided to do my own investigation into the Iran Nuclear Deal. I wanted to know if any of the

sanctions that the U.S. had put into place against Iran over the past few decades had actually

deterred them from the pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and whether their removal as called for in

the deal would either embolden or dissuade them form that pursuit.

I determined that the sanctions, particularly multilateral ones involving Western Europe

and other global powers, did succeed in deterring a nuclear Iran and eventually pushed them to

the negotiation table in 2015. However, Iran has already cheated on the deal in regards to the

parts relating to ballistic missiles, which suggests that they will eventually cheat on the nuclear

portions, too. In short, my initial concerns from last summer were warranted. The sanctions

worked while they were in place, but the Nuclear Deal ensuring their removal failed.

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The United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have considered each other enemies

since the latter’s inception in 1979. Ever since then, economic sanctions have been a popular tool

for U.S. policy makers on both sides of the aisle to use to attempt to coerce Iran into acting with

U.S. interests. Since the discovery of the nuclear threat in the 1990s, U.S. goals have been to

force Iran (via sanctions) to cease its sponsor of terrorism, prevent their acquisition of

biological/chemical weapons and ballistic missiles, and most importantly, prevent them from

acquiring a nuclear weapon. But have any of these policies worked? U.S. economic sanctions on

Iran have had very limited success in curtailing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. This

minimal success only occurred under the narrow parameters of multilateral sanctions that created

economic costs large enough to translate into political costs for Supreme Leader Ayatollah

Khamenei’s government.

One of the criteria for sanctions to be effective is that the political costs for the receiving

country of enduring the sanctions must greater than the political costs of cooperating with the

sanction sender, and most often the type of government in the target country determines this.

Provided it is assumed that the current leader wants to remain in power, the likelihood of him or

her staying in power while conceding to the sender’s demands must be greater than that of

suffering the sanctions, otherwise, the leader will have no incentive to comply.1 But for the

political costs of enduring sanctions to increase, the sanctions must harm somebody in the

receiving nation, and with economic sanctions, that is most often the general population, not the

leaders of the government. That follows that the leadership of a democratic country will endure a

greater political cost than the leadership of an autocracy because the democratic leader has to

1 Nikolay Marinov, “Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize Country Leaders?,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49, No. 3 (July 2005), 567.


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answer to his or her people, who would not be pleased with a sanction-induced stagnant

economy.2 Meanwhile the autocrat will not because he or she can ignore his or her constituents.3

Thus, sanctions are more likely to prompt democratic targets to comply with the demands of the

sender since the democratic leader will risk losing office for not doing so. An autocrat can accept

the sanctions and use his or her power and authority as an autocrat to continue to suppress his or

her people if they become upset with the economic hardships of the sanctions.

Since Iran is not a democratic regime but a theological autocracy, the Supreme Leader is

not obligated to listen to his people. Sure the sanctions may restrict Iran’s economy and make

life a little tougher for the average Iranian, but the government is not responsive to its people’s

needs and desires. Thus, on this account, the sanctions are likely to fail. The only people that

Khamenei’s government is going to listen to are those that belong to his “winning coalition,” or

whomever he needs to please in order to maintain his power. By definition, the general citizenry

does not belong to a theocratic autocracy’s winning coalition.4

The second criterion is that the sanctions must hit the target’s revenue sources that

enables his or her grip on power.5 For a personalist autocracy, those sources of power lie in the

leader’s ability to deliver patronage rents to the small group of elites that make up his or her

winning coalition.6 A personalist autocracy is an autocracy led by one individual or family, and

patronage rents are cushy government jobs and/or money that come at the detriment of the larger

society as a “thank you” for support. The case is different for single-party and military

2 Ibid., 570. 3 Ibid., 570-571. 4 David Lektzian and Mark Souva, “An Institutional Theory of Sanctions Onset and Success,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 51, No. 6 (Dec. 2007), 849. 5Abel Escriba-Folch and Joseph Wright. “Dealing with Tyranny: International Sanctions and the Survival of Authoritarian Rulers.” International Studies Quarterly. (2010) 54, 335. 6 Ibid.


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autocracies, which rely on repression of their people and cooptation (incorporation of potential

rival political groups into their coalition).7 In a single-party autocracy, one political party

dominates the political landscape, while in a military autocracy, a current or former military

officer is in charge. According to Escriba-Folch and Wright’s study, “[single party and military]

regimes are unlikely to be destabilized by sanctions because they can adequately compensate for

any political costs by diverting resources to repression and further cooptation.”8 In other words,

these regime types can increase taxes on the general population to raise the revenue lost due to

the sanctions, which prevents them from enduring political costs from rival political groups that

would seek to supplant the current leadership. The extra tax revenue is an assurance to these

potential threats that the current regime is financially capable of meeting their needs, which gives

the rival group a reason to trust, and thus join with, the single party or military. The new revenue

also gives more resources for oppression, which prevents the general population from holding

their government accountable for any hardships they have to endure because of the sanctions.

However, personalist regimes have a harder time holding onto power when under

sanctions because they “are more sensitive to the loss of external sources of revenue (such as

foreign aid and taxes on trade) to fund patronage.”9 Sanctions hit trade revenue the hardest since

most sanctions involve restrictions on imports and exports or foreign investors and financial

institutions. Personalist dictators cannot fund their government without the money they make

from trade, and if the government is underfunded, there are fewer government jobs and other

rewards to give out to their tiny winning coalition to maintain their loyalty. The sanctions may

also make using the military to oppress their people harder since, the personalist dictator, unlike

7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 344-345. 9 Ibid., 335.


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a military dictatorship, does not always have direct control over the military (which is needed to

keep the rabble in line).10 Thus, sanctions have a greater likelihood of extracting concessions

from the target if it is a personalist autocracy than if it were a single party or military regime.

Therefore, it is necessary to determine which of the three types of autocracies Iran is to

determine if the sanctions on Iran are effective.

Classifying the Islamic Republic can be a bit tricky due to its complex set-up. The

executive branch is headed by the Supreme Leader (currently Ayatollah Khamenei), who is

appointed by the Assembly of Experts, a body of eighty-six seats whose members are elected all

at once to eight-year terms.11 The Assembly can also remove supreme leaders that turn out to be

unqualified or incompetent in office. This makes it seem that there is an indirect democracy in

Iran. However, the regime is still classified as an autocracy because the Assembly of Experts is

not transparent; it does not reveal to the public what it discusses.12 As Rahimi notes,

accountability, along with self-determination, are two key tenants of democracy.13 Yes, the

Assembly is elected and therefore technically meets the self-determination requirement, but since

there is not transparency, it is impossible for the Iranian people to hold the Assembly

accountable for its decisions because they do not know what those decisions are. So, the

Assembly fails to meet the accountability requirement, and thus Iran’s whole political system,

fails to meet the full definition of democracy. Also, in 2006, conservatives in the government

sought to schedule the Assembly elections and municipal elections on the same day. In the

municipal elections, citizens theoretically have more say, and this gives the illusion that the

10 Ibid., 345. 11Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Going to Tehran, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013, 185. 12Babuk Rahimi, “Iran: the 2006 Elections and Making of an Authoritarian Democracy,” Nebula, Vol. 4, No. 1. (March 2007), 287. 13 Ibid.


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Assembly is democratically elected, and that the Supreme Leader is also democratically

elected.14 However, this is most definitely not the case because all reformer candidates and

critics of the Assembly and Khamenei have been excluded from running for office since 1991 by

the Guardian Council (GC).15

The GC decides who may run for office, demanding that all candidates be experts in fiqh,

or religious jurisprudence, to be eligible.16 The GC is composed of twelve members, six of whom

are appointed by the Supreme Leader, the other six elected by the Majles (or Islamic

Consultative Assembly, Iran’s legislature).17 Candidates for the Majles must also be approved by

the GC.18 So, in effect, this creates a closed system wherein the Supreme Leader appoints half of

the people that get to decide who is allowed to run for the offices that appoint him to his own

position (the Assembly of Experts), and the other half of the candidate-approvers (the GC) are

chosen by the legislature, whose candidates are also approved by the GC. There is no external

check on the Supreme Leader, nor his allies in the Majles or Assembly of Experts, thus even

though it may look like Iran has a democracy, it is very much an autocracy. But still, is Iran a

personalist autocracy or a single-party autocracy?

Iran is a combination of both. The position of Supreme Leader and his powers in regards

to declaring war, granting pardons, removing the Iranian president from office, being the head of

the armed forces, and appointing six members of the GC (as part of his circular “accountability”

structure) suggest the former.19 For purposes of this paper, the Supreme Leader also has the last

14 Ibid., 288. 15 Farideh Farhi, “The Assembly of Experts,” United States Institute for Peace: The Iran Primer, Published 2010, updated August 2015, 1. 16 Leverett, Going to Tehran, 185. 17 CIA “The World Factbook: Iran,” Central Intelligence Agency, Updated Dec. 7, 2015. 18 Ibid. 19 Leverett, Going to Tehran, 185.


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say on the nation’s nuclear program, which supports this conclusion.20 However, the Assembly

of Experts, Majles, and position of president suggest the latter, as Ayatollah Khamenei depends

on support from the hardline conservatives in the Assembly of Experts to maintain his grip as

Supreme Leader.21 For purposes of determining the effectiveness of sanctions in forcing Iran to

comply with U.S. and Western demands, Iran will be classified as a hybrid personalist/single-

party autocracy, the single-party being hardline conservatives.

Next is to determine what Iran’s revenue sources are, who makes up its winning

coalition, and how the two interact to keep Khamenei in power. The source of revenue is fairly

obvious: oil. “Today, [oil] remains the lifeblood of the Iranian state and its economy, and Iran’s

energy sector remains dominated by state and governmental entities.”22 Maloney confirms that

the state has firm control over its energy resources, which is critical if Khamenei wishes to use

the spoils of oil wealth to reward his conservative loyalists. The members of the Supreme

Leader’s winning coalition are the people elected to the Assembly of Experts. But since the GC

(six members of which are appointed by the Supreme Leader) determines who is eligible to run

for that office, they too constitute a part of Khamenei’s winning coalition. The members of the

Majles also make up the winning coalition since they appoint six of the GC members. This

circular “accountability” structure may make it seem that the only member of Khamenei’s

winning coalition is himself, but that is not possible. The Supreme Leader has to persuade his

people inside the Assembly, GC, and legislature to support him. The money from oil exports can

be used to fund the government itself, which includes the salaries for these positions, and is

20 Karim Sadjadpour, “Iran’s Presidential Election: An Autocracy Votes,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Published June 12, 2013. 21 Rahimi, “Iran: the 2006 Elections and Making…”, 287. 22 Suzanne Maloney, Iran’s Political Economy Since the Revolution, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, 375.


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effectively used to buy their support. This power structure is where the Iranian regime acquires

its personalist element, and suggests that U.S. sanctions on say, Iranian oil exports, would be

very effective in forcing Khamenei to comply because oil is his source of revenue, and thus,

power. But Iran is not completely a personalist autocracy.

The hardline conservatives that have control of the Assembly, GC, and legislature also

play an important role in keeping the current Islamic Republic alive.23 24 This group gives the

regime its single-party portion, as this single party maintains power through rigged elections and

repression of the people, although the people may not even realize it. Through cooptation,

Iranian conservatives can convince rival groups that have similar interests to join their group,

preventing the rival group from seeking to supplant them. The conservatives oppress their people

through flawed elections, flawed because the GC acts as a gatekeeper that prevents any reformist

candidates from getting on the ballot. Thus, the people are duped into re-electing the Supreme

Leader’s conservative hardliners every election cycle, but are under the illusion that they have a

legitimate political voice. This in turn gives Khamenei and his allies evidence to wave in front of

their people, and around the world, that their rule is legitimate, and when domestic situations turn

sour and the people try to complain to the Supreme Leader, he can say that his government is

doing just what the people told it to do. This effectually insulates Khamenei from domestic

pressure, and thus suggests that any U.S. sanctions would fail both in getting Iran to comply with

U.S. demands and/or the topple of Khamenei’s regime. His circular accountability system

(outlined above) enables the Majles to pass tax increases to compensate for the lost oil revenue,

which in turn enables the continued funding of the military so as to put down any potential

insurrections, all without fear of rebuff from the people. So do the sanctions work or not?

23 Rahimi, “Iran: the 2006 Elections and Making…”, 287. 24 CIA “The World Factbook: Iran.”


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The term “work” can mean an array of policy objectives, and those objectives have

changed in the 37 years since the Iranian Revolution. Various sanctions since then will be listed

with their corresponding goal, and I will evaluate whether or not the goal, preventing a nuclear

Iran, was met.

In 1995 President Bill Clinton issued Executive Orders 12957 and 12959. The former

banned U.S. companies from investing in Iranian energy, and the latter expanded the former to

include exports to and investments in Iran in general.25 Although Iran tried to play off Clinton’s

E.O.s, the value of the Iranian dollar on the black market plummeted dramatically, and Shell

dropped out of a bid to pump Iranian oil. However, this was not the end of Iranian sanctions

under the Clinton administration.

The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) of 1996, passed by the Republican 104th

Congress and signed by President Clinton, imposed sanctions on individuals and institutions that

invested $40 million or more in Iran’s petroleum resources. Section 2 of the law cites

congressional findings that the Islamic Republic was using “its diplomatic facilities and quasi-

government institutions outside of Iran” to support terrorism as well as further the development

of their own nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile weapons as justification for the sanctions,

and that “additional efforts were needed to deny Iran the financial means to sustain” these

programs (subsections 2 and 3). For the sake of brevity, only the U.S aim of preventing Iran from

acquiring a nuclear weapon will be addressed. Section 6 of the law allows the president to

choose two of six sanction options to levy on a person or institution that he determines to have

invested in Iranian petroleum, those six options being: One, denial from the U.S. Export-Import

Bank of extensions of credit. Two, a U.S. export ban to a sanctioned person. Three, denial of

25 Suzanne Maloney, Iran’s Political Economy Since…, 452.


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loans from U.S. institutions. Four (for banks), prohibition of being a primary dealer of U.S.

government debt tools and prohibition of the bank’s use as a place to store U.S. government

money. Five, prohibition of U.S. government procurement (purchase) of items from a sanctioned

person. Six, restrictions on imports. Returning to the core questions: Did this measure succeed in

preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, or at the very least bring them to the

negotiation table?

The short answer is not really. To begin, the sanctions from Clinton’s executive orders

did serve to destroy the Iranian currency, a large economic cost. However, this failed to translate

into any political cost on the leaders. ILSA was an even bigger failure, as third party countries

and their companies that invested in Iran did not appreciate U.S. intervention. Maloney quotes

then- French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as saying that “‘American laws apply in the United

States. They do not apply in France’” and that Jospin would “‘rejoice in’” a deal from Tehran for

Total, a French energy company.26 The Clinton administration was eventually forced to

compromise on ILSA, issuing a waiver for Total’s involvement in Iranian energy.27 This

effectively destroyed any hopes of ILSA working, as Maloney states, “…ILSA presented a

minor additional risk factor for Iran’s prospective foreign investors, but there is no evidence to

suggest that it succeeded in dissuading them.”28

Although ILSA aimed sanctions at the right target (foreign investors in Iran, which are

one of the Supreme Leader’s main sources of revenue and thus power), they failed to ever reach

the targeted individuals. The biggest mistake of ILSA was that it severely lacked international

support and multilateral action. Europe had no interest in aligning with the United States on the

26 Ibid., 454. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., 455.


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issue and even questioned the U.S.’s legal authority to carry out ILSA. Even though the law’s

punishments seem to all be possible and legal by the United States since they all deal with

restricting the access of the sanctioned person to U.S. financial resources, the Europeans,

particularly the French, called the Americans’ bluff. Thus, ILSA had no effect on restraining

foreign investors in Iran, and thus was unable to turn the economic cost of lost oil revenue into a

political cost to Supreme Leader Khamenei. And with no risk to losing his power, Khamenei had

no incentive to come to the negotiation table, let alone abandon his nuclear program. This case

also suggests that multilateral, not unilateral, action is necessary for the success of sanctions.

However, President Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, had more success with executive

orders than Clinton did.

President Bush signed E.O. 13224 in the immediate wake of 9/11, which froze the assets

of all individuals and organizations designated as terrorists (Maloney 459).29 Though it took four

more years, these sanctions were applied to the Iranian government. Further action was taken in

2006 when the U.S. Treasury Department, under authority from EO 13224 designated, for the

first time, an Iranian bank, Bank-e Saderat, as a terrorist organization because of their

involvement in funding the terrorist group Hezbollah.30 By the end of 2007, the U.S. had

designated virtually all Iranian financial institutions as such.31 Later the Bush administration

also successfully got the United Nations to pass three Security Council sanction resolutions that

“deliberately targeted individuals and institutions associated with the nuclear program.”32 As

Maloney says, the Financial Action Task Force put out a warning that the Iranian government

did not have an effective program to combat money laundering that supported terrorism, which

29 Ibid., 459. 30 Ibid., 461. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., 463.


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prompted the European Union to join the United States in sanctioning the whole Iranian financial

system.33 At first glance all of this looks like an incredible victory for the United States, as they

listed Iranian financial institutions and the state as sponsors of terrorism, sanctioned them on this

basis, and convinced Europe to join them in doing so. With multilateral sanctions from the West,

surely Khamenei would cave and end the nuclear program.

Not quite. Despite the heavy sanctions from the West, Iran was able to survive by trading

with and receiving investments from other countries, especially China.34 In fact, Iran’s imports

from China grew at a faster rate than Iran’s oil exports to China around this time.35 Again, these

sanctions failed to cut off Khamenei’s oil revenue completely because China was still willing to

invest in Iran and buy their oil, despite all of Bush’s, and later Europe’s, sanctions. Thus, since

Khamenei still had oil money to fund his government and pay his allies with, he had no reason to

believe his grip on power was threatened, and thus had no reason to budge on the nuclear

program. Even though the sanctions were multilateral, they were not multilateral enough in that

they did not include China, and with one of the world’s most powerful economies willing to

invest, Khamenei was still insulated from political costs.

President Barack Obama’s administration pursued a further clamp down of sanctions on

Iran, building off of ILSA with the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and

Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2010. CISADA amended ILSA to allow the president to choose

not just two, but three of the six options for sanctions available for the sanctioned person and

lowered the investment threshold from $40 million to $20 million. The law also made the

provision of petroleum (as well as nuclear weapons technology) to Iran whether directly or

33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 464. 35 Ibid.


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indirectly, a sanctionable offense. The other significant provision was a ban on all Iranian

imports to the U.S. and U.S. exports to Iran. Aided by momentum from the passage of United

Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1929, CISADA also served to convince many

other nations to tighten their own sanctions on Iran.36 UNSCR enabled individual measures from

individual states and the EU. In the following years, the United States and Europe continued to

turn up the heat. In late 2011, the U.S. put sanctions on Iran’s petrochemical sector and also

extended sanctions on their Central Bank.37 Britain prohibited any financial transactions with

institutions of Iran, which included the Iranian Central Bank, and the European Union banned all

imports, purchase, and transportation of Iranian oil while also instituting an asset freeze and

refusing to insure Iran’s oil shipments.38 With that, Iran was now blocked from the European

market, which up until then had been its greatest customer.39 This means that there was indeed

pre-existing trade between Europe in Iran, meaning the loss of Europe’s business would most

definitely harm Iran’s economy.

All of this acted to cripple Iran’s ability to export oil and to access the money that it was

paid for its few crude customers in the Far East, whom were left trying to figure out how to keep

domestic gas prices low (by buying Iranian oil) while also avoiding U.S. sanctions (by not

buying Iranian oil).40 Iran’s alternate oil customers (i.e. China, Japan, South Korea) had caved to

U.S. pressure by 2013 and reduced their purchases of Iran crude accordingly.41 On the surface, it

looks like these hard-hitting sanctions from the West worked. The U.S. and Europe had

succeeded in dissuading other nations from investing in Iran, depriving Khamenei of desperately

36 Ibid., 465, 467. 37 Ibid., 467 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 468.


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needed oil revenue while also hampering Iran’s economy and international authority without

destroying the global economy along with it.42 However, Maloney argues that these measures,

although successful in producing economic costs on Iran, have not achieved their intended goal

of verifying the Islamic Republic’s abandonment of their pursuit of a nuclear weapon.43 But I

beg to differ, and if Maloney had written her book a year later, I think she would agree with me.

The signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on July 14, 2015 in

Vienna marked a historic occasion in the saga of Iran’s relations with the West, as the E3/EU+3

(the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, and Russia) and Iran reached an

agreement in regards to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. As mentioned above, Western

sanctions dealt a heavy blow to Iran’s economy, and anecdotal as well as statistical evidence

show that average Iranians took notice and were not pleased. During the debates in Iran to

approve the agreement that was signed in Vienna, a poll conducted in Iran that 57 percent of

Iranians supported the deal, while only 15 percent outright opposed it (Eqbali).44 Eqbali and

Fitch also point out that most deal supporters are young people as well as Iranians in the business

sector because both groups like the economic opportunities afforded to them by enabling access

to Western markets via sanction removal.45 Although there is no explicit evidence that shows

that Western sanctions pushed Iran to the negotiating table, there is no other logical reason that

would prompt Khamenei to do so. Here, the economic costs to the Iranian people did translate

into political costs, as Khamenei’s regime and President Hassan Rhouhani realized that they

stood a greater chance of maintaining power by negotiating than by maintaining a hard line as

42 Ibid., 471. 43 Ibid., 471-472. 44 Aresu Eqbali, and Asa Fitch. “I Iran, Voices Rise Against Nuclear Deal.” The Wall Street Journal. Published Aug. 9, 2015. 45 Ibid.


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conservatives would like. So, in this sense, yes, the sanctions did succeed in bringing Iran to the

negotiating table.

Now implementation of the deal and verification of the absence of nuclear weapons in

Iran is a completely different conversation. On the later subject, the sanctions and subsequent

JCPOA success is to be determined. The E3/EU+3 agree to voluntarily remove all multilateral

sanctions and applicable UNSCRs, while the Islamic Republic pledges to voluntarily suspend all

pursuit of a nuclear weapon and to have only a peaceful nuclear program, as outlined by the

nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.46 However Iran has test launched two ballistic missiles since

the singing of the JCPOA in July. The first was on October 10 and in violation of UNSCR 1929,

which prohibits Iran’s use and testing of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear

weapon.47 This is also technically in violation of the JCPOA since the six Western powers agreed

to not lift sanctions, of which UNSCR 1929 is one, until the International Atomic Energy

Agency (IAEA) verified the peaceful status of Iran’s nuclear program.48 Although a report from

IAEA leader Yukiya Amano has been released, citing evidence of Iran’s pursuance of a nuclear

weapon until 2009, that (as of the writing of this paper) has yet to be accepted by a full vote of

the IAEA, which is required for the West to begin removing sanctions.49 Iran is also alleged to

have conducted a similar missile test (and thus the same violations) on November 21.50 Despite

these cases of Iran violating the deal in regards to missile launches, there is no evidence to

46 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “Read the Full Text of the Iran Nuclear Deal Here”. Foreign Policy. Published July, 14, 2015, 3. 47 Louis Charbonneau, “Exclusive: Iran’s Oct 10 missile test violated U.N. ban- expert panel,” Reuters, Published Dec. 15, 2015. 48 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action…, “Read the Full Text of the Iran…,” 11. 49 Oren Dorell, “U.N. watchdog closes investigation into Iranian nukes,” USA Today, Published Dec. 15, 2015. 50 David Sanger, “U.S. Cautions on Iran Missile Test Claims,” The New York Times, Published Dec. 8, 2015.


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suggest that Iran is also breaching the JCPOA in regards to the mandated curtails of its nuclear

program.

So, even though the JCPOA has been ineffective in terms of stopping Iran from

launching ballistics, the jury is still out on whether it will prevent the Islamic Republic from

acquiring a nuclear weapon. However, Iran’s breach of the deal in regards to missiles is not

promising when trying to predict their compliance in regards to nuclear weapons. This suggests

that eventually, Iran will most likely cheat on the nuclear aspects of the deal as well. Thus up

until now, the JCPOA has prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but that success

cannot be expected to last.


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Bibliography Charbonneau, Louis. “Exclusive: Iran’s Oct 10 missile test violated U.N. ban- expert panel.”

Reuters. Published Dec. 15, 2015. CIA. “The World Factbook: Iran.” Central Intelligence Agency. Updated Dec. 7, 2015. Dorell, Oren. “U.N. watchdog closes investigation into Iranian nukes.” USA Today. Published

Dec. 15, 2015. Eqbali, Aresu and Asa Fitch. “I Iran, Voices Rise Against Nuclear Deal.” The Wall Street

Journal. Published Aug. 9, 2015. Escriba-Folch, Abel and Joseph Wright. “Dealing with Tyranny: International Sanctions and the

Survival of Authoritarian Rulers.” International Studies Quarterly. (2010) 54, p. 335-359.

Farhi, Farideh. “The Assembly of Experts.” United States Institute for Peace: The Iran Primer.

Published 2010, updated August 2015. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “Read the Full Text of the Iran Nuclear Deal

Here”. Foreign Policy. Published July, 14, 2015. Lektzian, David and Mark Souva. “An Institutional Theory of Sanctions Onset and Success.”

Journal of Conflict Resolution. Vol. 51, No. 6 (Dec. 2007). Leverett, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett. Going to Tehran. New York: Metropolitan Books,

2013. Maloney, Suzanne. Iran’s Political Economy Since the Revolution. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2015. Marinov, Nikolay. “Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize Country Leaders?” American Journal of

Political Science. Vol. 49, No. 3 (July 2005). p. 564-576. Rahimi, Babuk. “Iran: the 2006 Elections and Making of an Authoritarian Democracy.”

Nebula. Vol. 4, No. 1. (March 2007). p. 285-290. Sadjadpour, Karim. “Iran’s Presidential Election: An Autocracy Votes.” Carnegie Endowment

for International Peace. Published June 12, 2013. Sanger, David. “U.S. Cautions on Iran Missile Test Claims.” The New York Times. Published

Dec. 8, 2015.

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