- Destabilising US sanctions to bite economy
No country would be keen to step in Iran’s shoes these days, for after the resumption of wide-ranging US sanctions on Monday, that footwear has become extremely ill-fitting and uncomfortable. Iran, already ringed physically and politically by hostile, unstable or infighting regional Arab states, now also faces the spectre of an economic meltdown. President Trump and the powerful hawks surrounding him appear hell-bent on bringing Iran to its knees and the negotiating table on their own terms, but having failed to achieve this goal militarily despite years of bluster and threats, are now employing enormous economic leverage to cripple it financially, targetting its oil and banking sectors. Some regional Muslim countries are inwardly delighted at this development on the myopic principle of ‘cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face’, despite the overall impact boomeranging on them too, but only one country is the ultimate beneficiary of US economic warfare to weaken Iran, namely Israel, whose prime minister termed the latest discriminatory sanctions a ‘courageous, determined and important decision’.
As always, it is the millions of ordinary Iranians who will feel the real pinch, with rising commodity prices, rial plummeting against dollar, shortage of food supplies, and even lack of essential medicines, the last factor alone being responsible for death of 400,000 Iraqi children when the country was under UN sanctions under Saddam Hussein in ‘axis of evil’ days. The Iranian economy had suffered a colossal loss of $160 billion in earlier sanctions during 2012-16, but was recovering after the 2015 nuclear deal, under which sanctions were later lifted and $100 billion funds unfrozen, but president Trump’s unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 from the multilateral agreement (that had been duly endorsed by UNSC resolution) and re-imposition of ‘relentless’ sanctions, presents a formidable dilemma for the Iranian leadership. The latter is putting on a bold show of defiance against provocative US rhetoric, it has indeed weathered past sanction storms, and hopefully with UN-EU backing, it can tide over this one too. A Republican Party defeat in Tuesday’s crucial mid-term US Congressional elections would be most welcome in Tehran and indeed the world. But there must be some uniformity or check on unilateral US sanctioning of self-proclaimed ‘foes’.
