Sanctions useless against Iran?

The West continues to increase pressure on Tehran over its suspected nuclear program. But will the latest set of sanctions help it reach its goals? Some experts believe the measures will only fuel nationalistic feelings in Iran and boost the regime.

Ivan Eland, an expert on political economics from the Independent Institute told RT the sanctions being pushed on Iran are a blunt tool and will probably hurt the Iranian people.“When you bomb a country, it unifies the population with the government, even if they don’t like the government. In this case we are not bombing yet, but we are attacking them economically. It actually helps the regime because a lot of the people in Iran, especially the young, don’t really like the regime,” he stated. The Russian deputy foreign minister said that recent events resemble an attempt to bring about regime change. And according to Eland, that is what the West really wants, though it is not going to work.“Sanctions rarely work. Even in the case of South Africa, where regime change occurred and sanctions were used, people associated the two, but in reality most revolutions happen internally, not from external sources,” he explained.David Lindorff, founder of the news blog "This Can't Be Happening", believes that pressure coming from the US and Israel could merely encourage Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons.“If you really want a country to get nuclear weapon then just keep threatening it with attack. Sooner or later they will do that because that’s the best defense they have against an attack.”Lindorff believes the sanctions will have a negative impact on the US goal of trying to drive a wedge between the people and the government.“If you look at Cuba, it’s probably the sanctions that have helped to keep the regime in power for all these years because people get so angry at those sanctions and see them as a threat.”