The Case for Gasoline Sanctions on Iran

Reuel Marc Gerecht und Marc Dubowitz plädieren im Wall Street Journal sowohl für eine Unterstützung der iranischen Demokratiebewegung sowie eine schnelle Umsetzung von umfassenden Benzin-Sanktionen:

The administration’s „smart-sanctions“ approach perpetuates a myth about Iran’s politics that has crippled our analysis for years. Mr. Khamenei isn’t an economic rationalist. He wasn’t waiting for George W. Bush to depart to make peace with the United States. Men who talk about crushing the „enemies of God“ won’t give up their enriched uranium because transaction costs have increased. The acquisition of the bomb is now probably inseparable from the ruling elite’s religious identity.

For sanctions to be a game changer, they have to be crushing. Mr. Khamenei’s commitment to developing nukes is probably as strong as was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s determination to destroy Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War. The shock that stopped Khomeini—the realization that the conflict was threatening his regime’s survival—ought to tell us what kind of shock we need now. Sanctions must complement the only thing that has so far rattled the regime: the pro-democracy Green Movement. [Weiterlesen…]

Gerecht und Dubowitz sind sich jedoch darüber im Klaren, dass Sanktionen kein Allheilmittel darstellen und konstatieren am Ende ihres Artikels doch etwas ernüchternd:

Gasoline sanctions may well be too little too late to throttle the regime’s nuclear aspirations. But we are fooling ourselves if we believe that what we’ve done so far will stop the Islamic Republic’s quest for the bomb.