Experts downplay effects of US sanctions on Iran economy
Experts observe that contrary to the goals which the United States expects to achieve by renewing its sanctions against Iran, the bans would only have a limited effect on the country’s economy, while failing to affect its regional involvement.
"Iran has been sanctioned for more than 40 years. It is not something new," Seyyed Hossein Moussavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator and Middle East policy specialist at Princeton University, told the Middle East Eye news portal on Friday.
"Iran is the most experienced country in the world [at] handling sanctions. I don't believe any other country in this region has the experience, capacity or scale to resist against sanctions," he added.
Moussavian said Iran "would have a hard economic time" as a result of the sanctions and may take a small hit. "It is a very important objective of Iran's political security to manage an economy minus oil," he added.
The sanctions would do nothing to deter Iran's conventional weapons industry, he added.
"The Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s pushed Iran to go for self-sufficiency in production of conventional weapons. Today, Iran is the most powerful country in the region for producing conventional arms – from tanks to airplanes to jet fighters, missiles, everything," he said.
The United States exited a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran in May, and threatened to reinstate all sanctions that had been lifted under the accord.
Washington re-introduced the first round of sanctions in August. The next round, which targets the country's energy sector among other things, is bound to take effect as of November 5.
Other parties to the deal -- the UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany -- have collectively censured the US withdrawal, stressing that the agreement has been ratified in the form of a United Nations Security Council, and thus the US departure violates international law.
Kenneth Katzman, a senior Iran analyst at Congressional Research Service, which conducts research for the US Congress, also ruled out that the bans could diminish the Islamic Republic’s regional role.
"There's no observable linkage between sanctions and Iran's economic performance and its regional operations," he said.
"Iran has been at the same level of regional activity as it was before these sanctions started," he added.
Tehran has made fighting terrorism on the national and regional level a priority, and has been helping Iraq and Syria in their anti-terror efforts at Baghdad and Damascus’ respective requests.
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