The US has long used economic coercion to achieve foreign policy goals — the war in lran shows how that power has declined

Two months after the United States, along with Israel, launched a war against Iran, that conflict appears far from a lasting resolution.

- BY CHARMAINE N. WILLIS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY AND KEITH A. PREBLE TEACHING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump

Much commentary on the protracted nature of the conflict has centred on the limits of both the military and diplomatic approaches to the war. But the conflict has also exposed another key reality: the limits of US sanctions.

The US has been the world’s preeminent economic and military power for decades, certainly since the end of the Cold War. It is at the centre of much global financial activity and has a military budget well beyond China, the closest competitor.

Leveraging that power, the US has long used economic coercion to achieve its foreign policy goals, whether against North Korea, under the Kim regime, Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, or Iran since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-allied Shah.

But as US power in the world has slowly declined, amid the rise of China, and an increasingly multipolar world, the country has likewise lost some of its ability to effectively use economics as a weapon. Indeed, as scholars of economic sanctions and statecraft, we believe that the conflict against Iran has made clear the diminishing returns of US economic sanctions.

The limits of sanctions on Iran

Since 1979, relations between Washington and Iran have been antagonistic. US policy has been largely to punish, contain or isolate Iran, and successive administrations have done so in part through a mix of primary, secondary and targeted financial economic sanctions.

US economic coercion has been applied on Iran for a variety of reasons, including its alleged state sponsorship of terrorism throughout the region and its nuclear programme.

The emergence of that nuclear programme, in 2003, which later resulted in United Nations sanctions against Iran, saw the US and European Union interests around Iran converge.