Iran sanctions: the wrong lesson

Closest parallel

But Syria offers the closest parallel to Iran. Washington placed it on the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1979, yet Hafez al-Assad remained in power until his death in 2000. His son Bashar inherited the presidency and ruled for more than 24 years under sanctions and isolation. The US threat of military action after the 2013 chemical attack pushed Assad to agree to the dismantlement of his chemical arsenal. Pressure changed his behaviour while leaving his rule intact.

His eventual fall at the end of 2024 came through a military offensive unfolding amid the effects of the Caesar sanctions, at a time when Russia was absorbed by the war in Ukraine and Iran, and Hezbollah were under intense Israeli pressure. Once al-Assad lost the protection of his two allies, and his forces disintegrated in the face of factions led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, he fled to Moscow.

How will Iran respond? It will most likely draw on the same playbook. It will confront Trump's campaign with instruments it has accumulated over more than four decades: "shadow fleets", shell companies, smuggling networks, proxies, trade with neighbouring states, barter, cryptocurrencies, a parallel financial system and deeper cooperation with China and Russia. It will also use its regional influence as leverage in negotiations and to circumvent sanctions.

At home, the regime will present the sanctions as an "economic war" and hold Washington responsible for inflation and poverty, while ignoring mismanagement, military expenditure and the cost of its proxies. External pressure may also provide a pretext for harsher repression.

The danger lies in the lesson Tehran may draw from others' experience. Gaddafi abandoned his unconventional weapons programme and remained in power for another eight years before his regime fell. Assad agreed in 2013 to dismantle his chemical arsenal and remained in power for another 11 years. North Korea, meanwhile, kept its bomb, and no one dared attempt to overthrow its regime by military force.

Hereditary succession, from father to son in North Korea and Syria, and from elder brother to younger in Cuba, has now been repeated in Tehran, where Mojtaba succeeded his father, Ali Khamenei, as the country's "Supreme Leader". Had NATO not intervened in Libya, Saif al-Islam might have succeeded his father. Without US intervention in Iraq, Uday or Qusay might conceivably have inherited Saddam Hussein's palaces.

Potential for backfire

Trump's sanctions are unlikely to topple Iran's ideological regime on their own. Combined with military strikes and attacks on supply lines, they will deepen its weakness, narrow its options and may push it towards negotiation. Pressure may equally drive Tehran in the opposite direction: towards heightened threats and adventurism across the region, a firmer grip at home, a faster pursuit of the bomb and a turn towards the North Korean model for protection.

This is the "wrong lesson". Iran may come to regard nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of regime survival: a deterrent against external enemies and, more crucially, an insurance policy against regime change itself.

The "Israeli factor" alters the equation. Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, destroyed the Syrian nuclear facility near Deir ez-Zor in 2007 and has carried out assassinations, sabotage operations, cyberattacks and military strikes against Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.

Israel regards Iran's nuclear programme as an existential threat rather than a bargaining chip, a perception that hardened further after October 7, 2023. It may therefore refuse to allow Tehran to reach the point at which possession of the bomb becomes an established fact.

Trump's sanctions have opened a new chapter in Iran. The question is no longer simply whether sanctions can bring down the regime. It is what the regime itself will do to survive. Therein lies the danger of the "wrong lesson".