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A Flimsy U.S. Sanctions Policy toward Iran
(Washington Post) Andrew K. Davenport and Ilan Berman - Given the advanced state of Iran's nuclear program, it stands to reason that the full arsenal of U.S. economic and financial sanctions would be deployed against the Iranian threat. Yet it has not been. The reality is that current sanctions policy is simultaneously extensive and flimsy. It amounts, in large part, to labeling a broad array of business activity as "sanctionable." But with the exception of a handful of cases, the actual sanctioning of violators has been markedly absent. Administration after administration has been reluctant to enforce sanctions against foreign companies with ties to Iran because of the diplomatic fallout that would invariably accompany such a decision. More often than not, the most egregious violators are companies headquartered in countries that are close U.S. allies or represent key strategic relationships for the U.S., such as China and Russia.