Sanctions Containment, Iranian Style

2018/12/08 | Economy, Opinion

Strategic Council Online: Six months ago there was a lot of commotion in the psychological atmosphere of the society, and the prospects of Iran's economy were very vague; of course it was not only Iranians who were waiting for the US President Donald Trump to announce his decision about the Iran Nuclear Deal (also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Reza Majidzadeh - Researcher, political economy of development

The leaders of the European Union wanted the United States to stay in the JCPOA, and other countries were thinking about other possible Donal Trump’s irrational decisions in the future. Although the currency and gold markets experienced emotional reactions when the US officially announced its withdrawal from the JCPOA but the day that the time for the second round of the US sanctions arrived, such behaviors have subsided and a relatively stable atmosphere is ruling over the market which needs a wise management of the economy and a right handling of the expectations.

 

Economic-Psychological Wars

After the JCPOA was agreed upon many expectations were created about its implications and for the same reason when Trump officially announced Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA it led to the outbreak of commotion. Of course, the turmoil did not originate from the announcement of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA alone; there were also other international actors who played a role.

However, the official announcement of US withdrawal led to a lot of chaos, and the economic war was accompanied by a psychological warfare aimed at exacerbating psychological expectations towards more instability and the possibility of the collapse of the ruling establishment. It also aimed at leading economic crises to severe social and political crises and internal tension.

In designing this psychological warfare, the United States had counted greatly on blocking an EU strategy to maintain the JCPOA, and for the same reason, Washington maneuvered on the British withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit).

The US while waging a psycho-economic war against Iran, had also started a trade war with the EU, China, and North and Central America. Threatening Iran oil customers that his administration would cut off trade relations with them and the punishment of companies doing business with Iran was in the same direction.

 

Command of Psychological Warfare

But US calculations about Iran’s inability to cope with the sanctions and lack of EU support to keep the JCPOA alive did not come true. In general, following the official announcement on US withdrawal from the JCPOA, the IRI government has pursued four general strategies; Filing a complaint at the Hague against the US failure to fulfill its international commitments; negotiating with Europe to save the JCPOA provided that Iran’s interests are ensured, including the obligation to buy Iranian oil and maintain commercial relations; exert pressures on Trump or even impeach him through the use of favorable conditions for the Democratic faction; and, ultimately, strengthening of relations with East Asia.

These strategies have led to American isolation and unreliability in an atmosphere of US-led warfare against its business partners. Even the ceremonial meeting of the US president with the North Korean leader which has a long record (North Korean leaders at times of economic pressures have drawn US presidents to the negotiation table to make concessions and increase the cost of military strikes against their country), did not help reduce Washington’s isolation and disgrace in the new international space.

This unfaithfulness on the part of the US president against Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA has provided Tehran with many opportunities to cope with the sanctions. Even a country like Turkey, which in the past joined the pole opposed to Iran’s strategies, decided to continue purchasing Iran’s oil, strike bilateral treaties and other partnerships. In addition, China and India too will continue to buy Iranian oil, and the American perspective of bringing Iran’s oil revenues to zero has not been realized. These conditions, along with the moral-financial-electoral scandals of Trump have generated an opposition front even within the Republicans.

Although the United States can put pressure on various countries through its multi-national corporations, but the Iran-EU strategy for the financial and commercial mechanism based on a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and the active presence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has shown that the post-Soviet provisional unipolar era has also come to an end, and it is always possible to devise new solutions for a healthy economic and commercial relationship. These achievements have had a positive outlook for expectations, and in practice, there was no emotional behavior in the society when the US imposed the renewed sanctions against Iran.

American perspective of bringing Iran’s oil revenues to zero | Bilateral Treaties | Iran-EU strategy | Iranian oil | Oil | renewed sanctions against Iran | US sanctions | US withdrawal from JCPOA

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