By Meir Javedanfar
The West needs to persuade Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to give up his nuclear ambitions voluntarily. A military strike won’t do that.
The Iranian regime can live without its nuclear program. But it can’t live without its economy, and the recently imposed sanctions, if continued, could turn into an existential danger for the Iranian regime by precipitating an economic collapse.
The sanctions imposed against Iran’s central bank in December 2011, which have started to dissuade an increasing number of countries from buying oil from Iran as they have to deal with the bank, are proving particularly damaging. These sanctions came in addition to a move by the EU that prompted the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) to discontinue offering service to Iranian banks. This means that from now on, Iranian banks won’t be able to send and receive money to and from the vast majority of banks abroad. Ultimately, this could mean Iranian businesses having to send suitcases full of banknotes to suppliers or abroad – or even to stop trading altogether.
A $900 billion economy simply can’t be run like this.
If there’s one thing we know about Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei it’s that nothing is more important to him than the stability of his regime. The West must therefore use the current economic weakness and diplomatic isolation of the regime as a tool with which to change Khamenei’s current nuclear policies.
Read the full 2 page story at The Diplomat