Effects and Criticism
Many of the Iran sanctions programs are administered by the United States of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
According to an Iranian journalist, the effects of sanctions in Iran include expensive basic goods and an aging and increasingly unsafe aircraft fleet. "According to reports from Iranian news agencies, 17 planes have crashed over the past 25 years, killing approximately 1,500 people."
The U.S. forbids aircraft manufacturer Boeing to sell aircraft to Iranian aviation companies. However, there are some authorizations for the export of civil aviation parts to Iran when those items are required for the safety of commercial aircraft.
A 2005 report, presented at the 36th session of the International Civil Aviation Organization, reported that the U.S. sanctions had endangered the safety of civil aviation in Iran because it prevented Iran from acquiring parts and support essential for aviation safety. It also stated that the sanctions were contrary to article 44 of the Chicago convention (to which the US is a member). The ICAO report said aviation safety affects human lives and human rights, stands above political differences, and that the assembly should bring international public pressure on the United States to lift the sanctions against Iran.
The European Union had been critical of most of the U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. Some EU Member States have criticized ILSA as a "double standard" in U.S. foreign policy, in which the United States vigorously worked against the Arab League boycott of Israel while at the same time promoted a worldwide boycott of Iran. The EU Member States had threatened formal counter-action in the World Trade Organization.
According to a study by Akbar E. Torbat, "overall, the sanctions' economic effect" on Iran "has been significant, while its political effect has been minimal."
According to the U.S. National Foreign Trade Council, in the medium-term, lifting US sanctions and liberalizing Iran’s economic regime would increase Iran's total trade annually by as much as $61 billion (at the 2005 world oil price of $50/bbl), adding 32 percent to Iran’s GDP. In the oil-and-gas sector, output and exports would expand by 25-to-50 percent (adding 3 percent to world crude oil production).
Iran could reduce the world price of crude petroleum by 10 percent, saving the United States annually between $38 billion (at the 2005 world oil price of $50/bbl) and $76 billion (at the proximate 2008 world oil price of $100/bbl). Opening Iran’s market place to foreign investment could also be a boon to competitive US multinational firms operating in a variety of manufacturing and service sectors.
In 2009, there was discussion in the U.S. of implementing "crippling sanctions" against Iran, such as the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009, "if diplomatic overture did not show signs of success by the autumn". Professor Hamid Dabashi, of Columbia University, said in August 2009 that this was likely to bring "catastrophic humanitarian consequences", while enriching and strengthening the "security and military apparatus" of "the Pasdaran and the Basij," and having absolutely no support from "any major or even minor opposition leader" in Iran. According to Bloomberg News, Boeing and Exxon have said that new Iran sanctions would cost $25 billion in U.S. exports.
It has also been argued the sanctions have had the counter effect of protecting Iran in some ways, for example the 2007 imposition of U.S. sanctions against Iranian financial institutions to a high degree made Iran immune to the then emerging global recession. Iranian officials argued that the sanctions created new business opportunities for Iranian companies to develop in order to fill the gap left by foreign contractors. According to U.S. officials, Iran may lose up to $60 billion in energy investments due to global sanctions.
On 18 January, 2012 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that sanctions are aimed at strangling the economy of Iran and would create much discontent toward Western nations, and potentially provoke a negative recourse.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Sanctions Against Iran
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