The Problem With Sanctions on Iran
By Douglas Farah
As the New York Times recently pointed out, the proposition of serious enforcing sanctions against Iran, particularly in the financial field, are not bright.
The reasons are multiple, but the basic one is that there are too many people and countries that simply want to make money and are happy to help evade sanctions. The second is that there is very little the international community can actually do to penalize sanctions busters. I lived through the global sanctions on Haiti in 1994, and if a desperately poor, isolated country like Haiti, with no real allies, could figure out how to break the sanctions, see the odds of meaningful actions against Iran.
Another reason is that, no matter what Western Europe and the United States -- heck, throw in China and Russia just for fun -- want to do, there are many countries that simply will not comply and in fact will go out of their way to aid Iran.
If one is searching for an answer as to what Iran wants with its expensive and sustained push into Latin America, at least part can be found in the desire to build an alternative structure to avoid sanctions through use of its Bolivarian allies. Venezuela has already agreed to sell Iran 20,000 barrels of gasoline a day, something Iran will desperately need if sanctions were to really kick in.
It is not likely to be a coincidence that Iranian banks operate in Venezuela as Venezuelan banks, or that Ecuador is allowing Iran's central bank in to operate. Nicaragua is hosting Iranian financial structures as well. Imagine Hugo Chávez or Daniel Ortega deciding not help Ahmadinejad out of a sense of international pressure. Can't do it? Neither can they.
But one does not have to look to Latin America to see how the sanctions will be circumvented. Ras al Khaimah, a small and poor emirate in the United Arab Emirates, has opened itself as an offshore haven and is busily registering hundreds of Iranian companies. Its airport is little encumbered by such things as strict cargo inspections or rigorous passenger manifestos, one of the reasons Viktor Bout operated there. My full blog is here.
