Balancing Power in the Middle East : A study of the purposes and effectiveness of the Iran Sanctions

Abstract: This study has two main purposes; to study the reasons of why sanctions were imposed on Iran, and evaluating the success of the sanctions. The study suggests that the disclosure of the Iranian nuclear program had consequences on the power balance in the Middle East, with Iran imposing a threat to regional neighbours and worrying the international community, leading to the United Nations Security Council imposing heavy sanctions on Iran in 2006. The study aims to study why sanctions were imposed on Iran and argues that the reasons can be derived from the theories of balance of powerand logic of choice, suggesting that sanctions were the best available foreignpolicy tool for the international community to use as a means to balance Iran’s power ambitions. Secondly, the study aims to provide a new perspective to the debate on sanctions that historically has been stating that sanctions do not work, which contradicts policy makers’ frequent choice to use them. This study shows that sanctions have been successful to a certain extent in the case of Iran, explaining some of the reasons for the success. These reasons are explained by a theoretical framework, weighing the three purposes of sanctions; coercion, constraining and signallingagainst conditions for success such as significant levels of pre-sanction trade, psychological factors, democracy, and clearly defined sanction goals. The study concludes that Iran beingcompletely blocked from the international market, causing an economic decline mainly affecting the middle class, in combination with the election of the West-friendly president Rouhani has been some of the main reasons for the sanctions’ success.