3 June 1997
USA Today
Barbara Slavin

View of sanctions questioned. Economic weapon's power is eroding, critics contend

In the U.S. diplomatic arsenal, economic sanctions have long been a weapon of choice.

How better to show displeasure with a rogue regime than to deprive it of resources from U.S. investors and consumers?

But a debate over the use of sanctions is growing at a time when the Clinton administration is practicing what critics view as an inconsistent policy with unintended consequences.

From Cuba to Iran, from Burma to North Korea, U.S. sanctions, or the lack of them, are under fire.

Criticism comes from those who believe that sanctions, except for arms embargoes, are a poor tool for influencing policy in other other countries, especially when the United States is alone in applying them.

"Our sanctions against Burma, Cuba and Iran are cheap, political feel-good actions," says Edward Hudgins, director of regulatory studies at the Cato Institute. "I don't see why denying Americans the liberty to trade with these countries will contribute to freedom for their people."

Recent presidential elections in Iran that overwhelmingly chose a less doctrinaire candidate, Mohammed Khatami, reignited the debate. A new study by James Bill, director of international studies at the College of William & Mary, suggests that U.S. sanctions against Iran have failed to isolate it and instead spurred it to increase contacts with other nations, particularly Russia.

Given Iran's strategic importance at the nexus of 70% of the world's known oil resources, Bill says sanctions are short-sighted. "Iran is the only major piece of real estate between Caspian oil and Persian Gulf oil," he says. "When a new line forms, the U.S. won't have a place in it."

Bruce Riedel of the National Security Council says the sanctions have reduced Iran's ability to acquire arms and will remain in place as long as Iran "supports terrorism, encourages violent opposition to the Middle East peace process and seeks nuclear and chemical weapons."

A study of U.S. sanctions since World War I indicates that they have failed two thirds of the time and have been increasingly ineffective as U.S. economic pre-eminence has faded, says Kimberly Elliott, a trade expert at the Institute for International Economics and co-author of the book, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered.

Sanctions have worked best, Elliott says, when they have been multilateral, as in the case of South Africa or Yugoslavia. They also are most effective when their goals are specific and narrow, such as preventing El Salvador from freeing the killers of six Americans in a 1987 amnesty.

It helps if the country being sanctioned depends heavily on the United States, but that is no guarantee. U.S. military action was required to apprehend Panamanian President Manuel Noriega in 1990 and to install Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994.

Then, there is the question of consistency. When President Clinton imposed economic sanctions on Burma in April, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright defined administration sanctions as policy as: "consistent principles and flexible tactics . . . different strokes for different folks."

But administration critics say the policy has been one of hard hits against less-strategic countries and weak or no strokes against countries with big U.S. business lobbies.

Despite wide displeasure with China's repression of political and religious rights, the administration has renewed "most favored nation" trade status with that nation. Continuation of what are really normal trade ties looks likely to survive a congressional challenge.

Domestic politics frequently play a role. The administration tightened sanctions against Cuba after Cuba shot down two planes piloted by Cuban-Americans in 1996. Similarly, a bill slapping a so-called secondary sanctions against Iran (punishing other countries or firms that do business with Iran) was passed and signed in a domestic political environment colored by the explosion of TWA Flight 800 last summer.

Sometimes, sanctions have unintended consequences. Continued U.S. sanctions against North Korea have put the United States in the odd position of donating food to that starving nation through the United Nations, but being inhibited from bilateral trade or aid that could enable the North Koreans to buy U.S. grain or grow more of their own.

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