Will Ward
I want to quickly flag three important resources that are all well worth a click.
- Check out this talk and accompanying oped by Bryan Early, who is a fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center working on sanctions policy. Early’s research is on the dynamics of (mostly) American sanctions and the effects these have on the trade of sanctions target countries with third party states. The work is based on an econometric analysis of over a hundred cases and found, among other things, the counterintuitive result that an alliance between the sanctioning state and a third party state means that the third party state is more likely to engage in sanctions busting trade with the sanctioned state. Why? Think about the USA-Iran-UAE trade triangle. US sanctions on Iran create market distortions – pent up demand in Iran and supply in the US. These imbalances lead to hugely profitable opportunities in countries like the UAE, which for cultural, geographical and historical reasons already have good trade relations with Iran. To make its sanctions more effective, the US needs to put pressure on the UAE to stop this trade but this is unlikely to occur because a) profitable trade with Iran produces domestic groups in the UAE who stand to lose a great deal from sanctions enforcement, and b) if the US pushes too hard, it could jeopardize its security alliance with the UAE.
- Anthony Cordesman has a new working paper (PDF) on the Gulf military balance and terrorism/ asymmetric threat scenarios. Probably the best open source military analysis out there. Thumbnail is that Iran has a head and shoulders advantage over the GCC states in small craft naval warfare, but is severely outgunned in airpower, and that the biggest security threats are low intensity/ terrorism / infrastructure attacks but that a conventional war is unlikely. Also highly recommend their March report (PDF) assessing Israel’s (not great) military options against Iran.
- Gary Sick who runs the terrific Gulf/2000 listserv has a new public blog Gary’s Choices to post his expert commentary on Iran and US-Iran relations. Although I can’t seem to link to individual posts, be sure to check out his post from May 27 responding to the Leveretts’ NYT oped on Iran policy.
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