re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Instead of posting silly pictures of Biden looking like a dumbass, why don't you just ask me to clarify what I mean?

Firstly, the sanctions regime instituted after the US exited the JCPOA were part of the maximum pressure campaign, which had a political goal. That goal was to get ballistic missile restrictions added to a new JCPOA. The fall of 2019 saw the campaign ramp up, with Iran responding with measures like the Abqaiq-Khurais attack in Saudi Arabia. But that campaign failed in even getting a meeting with the Iranians, as Ayatollah Khamenei expressly forbade any further negotiations with the US. The best example of this is at the UN General Assembly meeting in November of 2019, where Macron tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Rouhani, but Rouhani refused. LINK

The above NYT article gives a very interesting impression of the lengths Macron was willing to go to in order to facilitate a meeting, though the article is ruined by the wide degree of editorializing on display.

Secondly, Iran has gotten used to evading sanctions, as they have been under sanctions since the revolution. The IRGC in particular has developed supply chains which circumvent sanctions, where they used the UAE and Dubai as a hub. What people need to understand about Iran is that it has a base of Shia support that is multi-national. To showcase the fervor of Shia support, one of the largest gatherings of people yearly occurs in Karbala in Iraq, with nearly 30 million people attending each year. In other words, nearly 15% of Shia people in the world attend that event. I bring this up to highlight that Iran has a lot of ability to avoid sanctions by leveraging the inherent support they have as the 'leader' of the Shia world. For a long time, the Iranians used Shia foundations to circumvent monetary restrictions. And in areas of the world which do not have the same Sunni/Shia dynamic, you see other ways they can circumvent these sanctions.

For example, if the Chinese are to be believed, they import twice as much Malaysian crude as the country produces. How is this possible? By virtue of rebranding Iranian oil. There are a litany of other examples of how Iranian goods still end up at market when they technically should be sanctioned.

The point of this is to argue that the sanctions program did not have the desired effect, as the Iranians did not negotiate with Trump, though they did begin negotiations with Biden, which I believe was intentional. Those talks have not been fruitful either. Iran has developed a resistance economy designed around circumventing sanctions. It is grossly inefficient, but it is still 'good-enough' to avoid retribution on Iranian soil, which is the 'red-line' for the Iranians. They leverage their inherent support with Shia Muslims everywhere (except for Azerbaijan, with whom they have a tumultuous relationship because of their ties with Turkey and Israel) to circumvent those sanctions.

Unfortunately, sanctions are not going to be enough to displace Iranian proxies from Damascus, which is of paramount concern to the Israelis, nor is it enough to dissuade arms transfers between Iran and its proxies.

The evasion of the sanctions program is also instructive to the Russian situation, which now requires the EU to employ a sanctions envoy, David O'Sullivan, to try to ensure that sanctions are enforced, particularly in Eastern Europe.