Economic Sanctions on Iran Are Not Working

When it comes to Iran, the Biden administration has replaced its predecessor’s policy of “maximum pressure” with one of “maximum deference”—or so runs the refrain coming from many intelligent observers. This line of reasoning isn’t, strictly speaking, wrong: the Biden White House has indeed sought to reengage Iranian negotiators with softer rhetoric, very different from that of the Trump administration. And it has quietly pulled back certain sanctions while signaling a willingness to make further concessions. But overall Joe Biden’s policies have not deviated substantially from those of the two previous presidents.

The Biden administration has removed several sanctions targeting Iranian officials and entities as a gesture of goodwill, despite the president’s pledge not to do so. But the most important sanctions—those that restrict the government of Iran’s ability to conduct international financial transactions and minimize its oil exports—remain in place. Additionally, the administration, on two different occasions, has conducted a total of four separate strikes against Tehran’s proxies, two more than its predecessor. So despite the lifting of a few sanctions, the Islamic Republic is not feeling much change. And that means that, while President Biden is not exerting maximum pressure on the Islamic Republic, neither was President Trump.

That’s not to say that the pressure that Americans is currently applying is inconsequential. But it is pressure of a certain kind: economic pressure. Indeed, it is fair to say that the Trump administration exerted maximum economic pressure on Iran—doing almost everything short of imposing a blockade, which would constitute an act of war. In trying to use sanctions to force the Islamic Republic to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, President Trump was employing, with far greater intensity, a strategy introduced by the Clinton administration, one pursued haphazardly by every American president since. All of them have failed to bring a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear program.