How Has Iran Paralyzed the Sanctions?

Sayed Hadi Mousavi- Tehran

When the leaders of the European Union first considered the oil sanctions as their last weapon against Iran, they didn't think that Iran would welcome such a move.

European Union pushed by the United States was planning to sanction the Iranian oil industry that largely depends on the European investment and technology so that they could put much pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. But Iran seemed well-prepared for the whole plan and the effects of this embargo was easily controlled and countered.

Iran has been trying to develop plans for self-sufficiency. A huge amount of budget has been allocated to research and development of applied sciences. Thus, Iran has many achievements in this field, and has many different scientific and applied methods to counter the effects of sanctions.

Having to cope with these sanctions, the country has been able to demonstrate its abilities on self-efficiency by inaugurating many projects and organizing different scientific and applied exhibitions on the field of oil industry.

But the most important act by Iran was the anticipated embargo by Iran on oil exports to some European countries before they can plan for alternatives considering that they are experiencing economic problems.

On this note, Iranian Oil Minister, Rostam Qassemi said "Despite one-sided sanctions by the West, the Iranian oil export hasn't fallen at all and has harmed the Western economies and oil consuming countries. If these countries put aside their hostile stance, Iran is ready to resume its oil export. We know that the decision made by Iran, that is, to stop the oil export to some European countries, has had negative effects on their economy."

Reuters news agency confirms the Iranian Oil minister words. In its analysis, Reuters writes: "As Washington and its allies tighten the screws on Tehran over its nuclear program, Iran is coming up with new ways to sell its oil -offering special deals to allies China and India, delivering oil to clients and swapping it for gold and grain."

The news agency adds: "Washington, London and Brussels are doing their best to put up obstacles, but Iran is market savvy, these traders said, describing a number of ways Iran can avoid sanctions and continue to get its oil to market."

Leonid Fedun, a key shareholder in Russia's Lukoil which halted work in Iran 10 years ago because of US sanctions, said it was hard to envision measures that would keep Iranian oil from reaching markets.
"It is difficult to achieve something with sanctions if you have a system of different oil buyers. For example, if China doesn't join sanctions, they won't work," he said. Keeping Iran's vast supplies off the market would cause supply problems, which would be difficult in a US presidential election year when energy price are an issue," he added.

History of Sanctions
The history of sanctions on Iran goes back to victory of the Iranian Islamic Revolution. The first one was the US bans on Iranian imports. In 1995, the US banned energy investment and trading in Iran. Sanctions were imposed on foreign firms investing in Iranian energy sector.

New rows of sanctions came from 2006 up-to-date; the US weren't the only imposers. The United Nations Security Council voted on four sets of economic sanctions against Iran. The embargos have been imposed in different forms: banking/financial, trade, oil and gas, travel, arms and others.

Science and Technological Achievements

With the pretext of probable dual use of material, the sanctions could have had severe impact on the science and technological development, but the Iranian scientists had great achievements, especially in the field of nanotechnology, stem cells, surgery


In the military field, production lines for the hi-tech systems, including advanced laser systems for guiding a type of artillery gun, electronic guidance systems of a kind of anti-armor missile, laser warning systems for preventing planes straying into Iran's no-fly zones, three types of advanced radar systems, and a kind of microwave tube, were inaugurated on February, thanks to the efforts of Iranian specialists.
One of the latest successes was the interception of the CIA drone by Iran's Cyber warfare unit and the safe landing of it with minimum damage.

In one of the other hi-tech sciences, on February 2, 2009, Iran's first domestically made satellite Omid had been successfully launched into LEO by the Safir-2 rocket and therefore Iran became the 9th country to put a domestically built satellite into orbit. Iran became the sixth country to send animals into space, by launching a Kavoshgar-3 rocket on February 3, 2010 with one rodent, two turtles, and several worms into sub-orbital space and returned them to Earth alive. A new domestically-built Fajr (Dawn) is expected to be launched on May 23 and will be placed in elliptical orbit of 400 km in radius and will remain in space for a year and a half

Iran's Nuclear Achievements

Although all the sanctions against Iran were primarily imposed to curb the Iranian nuclear program, but they have failed and news of developments of the peaceful project are underway under the supervision of the UN atomic body.

In September 2009, the second
uranium enrichment plant near the village of Fordo that was carved into a mountainside 160 kilometers south of Tehran was unveiled. Although the Western countries have tried to portray it as clandestine activity, but according to Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, "now with the 24-hour [surveillance] cameras and inspections, the enrichment activities in Natanz and Fordo are under the control of the IAEA."
Last year, the international community failed to meet the obligation of providing 20 percent enrichment for the Tehran Research Reactor, therefore, Iran shifted the level of enrichment from 3.5 to 20 percent. This boost was a major development that local scientists achieved in a short period during which they produced medical isotopes for cancer patients.

Iran, Winner of the Sanctions

Telling that sanctions by Western countries haven't had any effect on Iran is an illogical statement. But in Economy, when a country follows a sanction policy, it deprives itself from the capacities of the sanctioned country and harms itself.

Following Iran's move to cut oil sales to British, French and Greek firms and refineries among others, global crude prices hit an eight-month high and even considering a small reduction of export, the overall revenue of Iran was even higher. On the other side, European countries depend on energy, and with such a sky-rocketing increase in oil prices, they feel the effect of sanctions on their fragile economies.

For example, refineries are designed according to the specifications of the crude oil it uses and can't be easily changed. With the sanctions, several European refineries have gone bankrupt and shut down.

However, bypassing the sanctions is not limited to the oil embargo; Iran has succeeded to do it with all forms of sanctions. Sanctioning Iran's major banks and specially the Iran Central Bank, embargo on trade companies and commodities has been economic tactics and Iran has found different ways to completely overcome these challenges.

The return of Western countries under the Umbrella of the P5+1 (comprising the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) to the negotiations table, also the announcement of their readiness to ease sanctions, is the best proof of the failure of the so called "crippling" sanctions in recent years.

Iran's currency gained ground against US Dollar and Euro after the first round in Istanbul, and the Tehran stock index posted its largest daily rise in months and closed at a high record.

A comparison between the current situation of Iran and the Western countries ravaged by economic crisis that has brought public discontentment, is a good indicator to determine the winner and loser of this economic war.

Source: moqawama.org

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