Old habits die hard, and the United States’ reliance on sanctions is no different. While sanctions have become a favorite tool of US policymakers, their efficacy is far from guaranteed. The sanctions imposed on Iran illustrate how the goals of sanctions often do not come to fruition. In fact, they often lead to unintended consequences such as creating humanitarian crises, boosting the power of authoritarian groups like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and increasing domestic unrest. These side effects of sanctions prove that while the United States likes to play the part of a global humanitarian hero, US leaders value their political success more than the lives of Iranian citizens.
Currently, the sanctions imposed on Iran include an arms ban and other sectors of Iran’s economy. The United States hopes to change the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) policies regarding regional involvement, support for international terrorism, nuclear and missile development, and human rights abuses. As the list of goals suggests, the United States often uses sanctions in a showman-like attempt at improving human rights. In the Iranian case, these sanctions have also been used as an attempt to flatten the economy. Sanctions are thereby held up as an effective tool to achieve policy goals while avoiding the negative components of military actions, but their impact on civilians proves that they are not the perfect solution that US leaders make them out to be.
The United States has inadvertently caused a humanitarian crisis in Iran due to sanctions that have prevented adequate medical supplies from reaching the Iranian population. Ali Gorji, writing in the Iran Journal of Public Health, argues that “harsh sanctions […] are increasingly affecting vulnerable patients as deliveries of medicine and […] medical equipment for hospitals are stopped.” The inability of medical supplies to reach vulnerable populations proves that the United States is actively harming Iranian citizens and committing their own human rights abuses under the claim of preventing such occurrences.
Not only are sanctions placing a burden on Iranian citizens, but US sanctions on Iran have also ironically improved the economic footing of those they are intended to harm. Originally, many Iranian sanctions were aimed at Iranian officials within the IRI to hinder their economic progress. Instead, these sanctions have bolstered the relative economic success of these entities. For example, many US sanctions targeted the IRGC and its leaders. However, because these entities do not have many assets and interests in Western companies, the sanctions remain relatively ineffective. These individuals have thus been able to increase their relative power within the Iranian economy. Furthermore, when sanctions are placed on Iran, small private sector companies have a hard time evading their impacts while bigger IRGC companies withstand the pressure. This leads the IRGC to expand its influence in the Iranian economy due to its ability to withstand sanctions. Therefore, the United States has painted itself as a savior for the Iranian people against an oppressive regime when, in reality, it is directly harming the smaller and more vulnerable sectors of the economy while bolstering the abilities of the IRGC. The United States has, therefore, given the IRGC and its officials a leg up with each economic sanction it imposes and put a metaphorical foot on the neck of the Iranian population.
The combination of humanitarian crisis and economic advantages provided to the IRGC leaves US sanctions ineffective, yet they remain in place as a favorite tool of US policy in Iran. There are two reasons why the sanctions continue to be imposed even though they do not meet their intended goals: the domestic politics of the United States and the domestic politics of Iran. In the United States, sanctions against Iran are viewed by many as a necessary tool to combat authoritative power. US leaders have used sanctions against Iran to build their support domestically. While President Donald Trump projects sanctions on Iran as a part of his America First foreign policy, former President Joe Biden has used them as evidence of US action against Iran’s attacks on Israel. What is left is a situation where no matter who is in power in the United States, Iranian sanctions remain because lifting them could lead to domestic political suicide. Many Americans view sanctions on Iran and similar regimes as paramount to US national security. Therefore, domestic leaders are not in a rush to remove them, and they risk losing votes due to appearing soft on authoritarianism.
Sanctions remain partly due to domestic considerations within the United States, but another explanation is the domestic politics of Iran itself. Narges Bajoghil, an anthropologist at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on Iran explains that sanctions are “supposed to put enough pressure on the regime and targeted state to change its behavior, or they’re supposed to put enough pressure on society to rise up against the state to then topple that state.” Thus, US sanctions against Iran fail to achieve success through regime pressure, but domestic Iranian politics proves that the possibility of sanctions contributing to a revolutionary situation remains. This slight possibility is likely to keep sanctions in place as the US government hopes to use the Iranian population as pawns in their game of regime change. The deterioration of living conditions caused by sanctions may then become viewed as a positive outcome for the United States, as it is more likely to create a revolution.
Recently, Iran has seen an increasing number of protests and movements against the IRI as a result of low quality of life and lack of access to resources. The United States cannot claim ignorance of the negative effects of these sanctions, as the impact on civilians is heavily documented. If human rights were their paramount concern, these sanctions would not exist. Instead, political power and benefits to US leaders in the ballot box come to center stage.
Some argue that lifting the sanctions would not provide relief to the Iranian people; therefore, the small possibility of success makes leaving the sanctions in place the best policy option. However, issues such as the lack of adequate medical supplies would be mitigated by lifting the sanctions, proving that sanctions are a contributing factor to the negative conditions within Iran. The Iranian people are caught between a repressive regime with no concern for human rights and an external power that claims concern for human rights but is willing to put pressure on civilians to achieve their end goal. Furthermore, because the sanctions imposed by the United States lack a clear end goal and are continually reinforced, the people of Iran will likely suffer for extended periods of time.
The United States now faces a critical decision regarding sanctions on Iran: Let them remain for domestic reasons and global positioning, or reform the policies to alleviate the harm to the Iranian people. That choice is clear, but not for US politicians who are most fervently cornered about their success each November. By keeping the sanctions on Iran in place, US leaders are able to claim that they are taking steps to protect national security while failing to acknowledge the negative consequences of this policy. Furthermore, if they do acknowledge these vast negative outcomes, they may exploit the negative pressure on the Iranian population to create revolution. It is clear that sanctions remain not because they are necessarily effective in achieving their stated policy goals but because they make a good talking point for US politicians. The United States and its leaders have decided that the Iranian population can be used as a chess piece in their game of power.