CIAO DATE: 02/2014
December 2013
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The report provides an in-depth analysis of US and Iranian competition focusing on four interrelated areas – sanctions, energy, arms control, and regime change. It shows this competition has been steadily building since the fall of 2011, when the IAEA issued a new report on the possible military applications of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has continued to issue threats to “close the Gulf,” and has stalled negotiations, spurring a renewed round of sanctions that have had an increasingly significant impact on Iran’s economy throughout 2012 and continuing into 2013. The report shows this competition takes place at levels ranging from the bilateral to the multilateral, and encompasses the UN, EU, US, and IAEA. The patterns in this competition have become extremely complex; in practice the patterns of interaction between each form of competition have acquired a cyclical consistency that seems likely to go on indefinitely into the future. It traces the history and impact of US application of a wide range of sanctions on Iranian banks; targeting Iranian companies involved in the nuclear, petrochemical, and oil industries, as well as non-Iranian companies that conduct financial transactions in Rials or are involved with Iran’s petrochemical industries, arms industries, transport, and precious metal trafficking. It also shows the impact when the EU joined the US in sharply increasing its sanctions on Iran by imposing an embargo on Iranian petrochemical imports and banning European investment in Iran’s petrochemical industry, cutting Iran out of the international banking system, and banning insurance agreements and loans.
Resource link: The US and Iran: Sanctions, Energy, Arms Control, and Regime Change [PDF] - 4.4M