Economic Sanctions

4 Pages 955 Words

The first ethics question talks about the economic sanctions that the United States places on Iran. The sanctions disallow international trade and investment between U.S. and Iranian business people. Business leaders in the United States would like the sanctions removed so that they can be included in lucrative Iranian oil and gas deals which firms from other countries are engaging in. Other opponents to the Sanctions wonder if a policy of offering “all stick and no carrot” is undermining social and political change in Iran since the offending regime goes largely unpunished.
I don’t feel that sanctions can be effective at changing the behavior of governments. Take Cuba for example, we’ve had an embargo placed on the country for years in order to persuade them to change their government. Castro is still in charge and leads the country just the same. While the embargo does limit the economic success that the country has had, it has not forced the country to topple. What it does is force the country such as Iran to do is to develop strategies for diversifying trade routes, to find new economic partners, and reducing dependence on oil export revenues to the United States. From a business standpoint all we are doing is limiting the amount of revenue that we can obtain and limiting the potential for another market in which we could thrive.
One country acting alone can’t bring about reforms through the use of economic sanctions or embargoes. While The U.S. is a leading power, there are plenty of other countries that would leap at the economic opportunities that we are leaving behind, and do. While we had an embargo on Cuba other countries such as Russia were still working with Cuba.
After the Persian Gulf War the U.S. began to persuade Europe and Japan to limit their involvement in Iran. There was no way for the U.S. to enforce any of these policies. To be fully effective with sanctions or embargoes there would ne...