U.S.-Iran Relations Feel Coming Frost

Interview with Rami Khouri

So the United States has acted unilaterally once again and hit Iran with sanctions against three of that nations state banks and, by proxy, its military and Revolutionary Guard. Now what?

According to Rami Khouri — Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut and editor in chief of Beirut's Daily Star newspaper — it's too soon to tell. In the short term, Khouri says the U.S. may succeed in bolstering support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ruling regime and fueling criticism of U.S. policy toward a Revolutionary Guard it has labeled a terrorist group. In the long run, U.S.-Iranian relations and relationships between Iran and its neighboring countries may hang in the balance.

What is the U.S. expecting Iran to do as a result of these sanctions?

The U.S. government basically is trying to pressure the Iranian regime to bring it down, change it or to make it drastically change its policies, so they're going to use all the means they can — including labeling the Revolutionary guard as a terrorist organization. There are already sanctions on Iran, including sanctions on certain bank transactions, so they have a lot of impact. The Iranians are aware of this and have been expecting it. You have two situations, in Iran and Syria, in which the U.S. has tried to apply diplomatic pressure and threats and has not been successful in making them change their policies — it has actually hardened their policies. So it strikes me and other observers of U.S.-Iranian relations as a policy that is not likely to have an impact.

Read the rest of the interview at the Metro Boston website.