Changes in the Iran Sanctions Policy Environment

August 9, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

Sanctions - Stringent oil sanctions on Iran were once thought too risky, but several features of the policy environment have facilitated their use, notes Michael Levi at CFR. First, Congress took greater political control over sanctions, giving momentum to the sanctions push. Second, policy-makers held a new hypothesis that discounted Chinese oil purchases would both drop Iran’s oil revenues and keep the global oil supply steady. Third, a weak global economy and increasing U.S. oil production kept oil prices down.

--As the above factors change and the price of oil grows again, it could “make ever-tighter sanctions an increasingly challenging task,” notes Levi.

--On the big picture: ”Sanctions alone will not solve the Iranian nuclear problem. They need to be combined with effective diplomacy to have a real chance of success.” http://on.cfr.org/O6FffU

Less oversight? - Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee, led by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), have pushed for reducing federal oversight of the nuclear weapons complex. As the recent break in by several senior citizen peace activists at the Y-12 nuclear facility shows, security and oversight at the complex is not exactly tip top.

--“These baffling failures in security readiness underscore unacceptable deficiencies at what should be the safest and best defended sites in the country...These deficiencies are direct evidence that we cannot risk weakening federal and independent oversight,” said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Douglas Guarino at Global Security Newswire has the story. http://bit.ly/NlweyA

Welcome to Early Warning - Subscribe to our morning email or follow us on twitter.

--Have a tip? Email earlywarning@ploughshares.org. Want to support this work? Click here.

Hardware first, cooperation later - “The United States and its Arab allies are knitting together a regional missile defense system across the Persian Gulf” in a pointed message to Iran, reports Thom Shanker of The New York Times. So far, it’s been mostly hardware sales - with Kuwait buying $4.2 billion, the U.A.E buying more than $12 billion, and Saudi Arabia buying $1.7 billion in missile defense systems in recent years.

--The big challenge, notes Shanker, will be getting these countries to work together - networking their hardware for a cooperative regional system. “While all six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council share concerns over Iran, all have resisted multilateral security initiatives.” http://nyti.ms/Na77mb

Tweet - @wellerstein: Insane newspaper graphic from August 9, 1945, showing how many A-bombs necessary to exterminate 100% of Japanese… http://bit.ly/MBTSus

Alternative -The alternative plan to building the CMRR facility is beginning to take shape said Gen. Robert Kehler, commander of STRATCOM, in a Wednesday press conference. “[Gen. Kehler] is now confident that his interim needs for warheads could be met in the years leading up to the replacement facility’s construction,” according to Global Security Newswire.

-- “I believe that there are some viable alternatives there,” said the General. Construction of the CMRR facility was expected to cost $6 billion. Full story here. http://bit.ly/OMOVe5

Dynamics - Trita Parsi delves into the complicated dynamics of the U.S.-Israel relationship and its effects on Iran policy after Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta expressed frustration over a recent trip to Israel.

--”Panetta’s frustration with the Netanyahu government is not surprising. He knows what kind of strategic and political problems a unilateral Israeli strike would produce for the Obama administration, not to mention for the region as a whole,” writes Parsi. Salon has the full post. http://bit.ly/RqlWQC

Shake up - Navy Rear Adm. James Syring, the Obama Administration’s nomination for chief of the Missile Defense Agency, would be the agency’s first leader from the Navy, which is raising questions about what direction the agency will take in the future. Global Security Newswire has the story. http://bit.ly/O585NA

Pictures - Reid Dennis was sent to Japan with the U.S. Navy shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and witnessed the destruction of the cities firsthand, “free to roam about in the rubble and pick up anything that looked interesting.” He took pictures and has shared them with Ploughshares Fund to commemorate the anniversary of the bombings this month. See the slideshow here. http://bit.ly/O6HHCR