00:00Well, Negan Murtazavi is an American-Iranian journalist and political analyst based in Washington, D.C., and joins me now.
00:07Thank you very much for coming on the program.
00:09Of course, Iran is no stranger to sanctions, is it?
00:12They've been living under U.S. sanctions for the best part of a decade.
00:16What do these new U.N. sanctions look like, and what impact do you think they'll have on Iran's economy?
00:22Absolutely. As you said, Iran is one of the most, if not the most, sanctioned country in the world.
00:33And they have been suffering for many years under these tough economic sanctions by the U.S.
00:40But it also somewhat figured out their way into some form of stability, suffering but also with stability.
00:47So these sanctions, these U.N. sanctions on arms, on certain individuals and institutions, are not going to have the same kind of impact.
01:00In fact, essentially, from the Iranian viewpoint, there isn't much left to sanctions since every major industry is sanctioned in Iran.
01:08So these sanctions are not going to have an economic shock per se, a major economic shock.
01:14But the importance of these sanctions is more from a diplomatic and global perspective.
01:21This is essentially, these are seen as U.N. sanctions, not U.S. sanctions.
01:26And it affects Iran's diplomatic and global standing.
01:30And it just makes it difficult for other countries to do that kind of trade, which they used to do, circumventing only U.S. sanctions.
01:39In this case, it's going to be more U.N. sanctions.
01:41And so that's why the more pro-diplomacy camp in the Iranian political structure had been trying to avoid this snapback from going through, of course, not successfully.
01:56Neger, it's certainly very interesting that you describe it there as suffering with stability, that they will be able to cope with this,
02:02that they have got allies in the region and they will be able to come out of the other side.
02:06But with sanctions on all sides, we've had the U.N. sanctions initially, then we had the U.S. ones and now the U.N. ones again.
02:15Iran's economy, it is severely hampered, although, as you say, it will still be able to function.
02:22Do you think that with these sanctions, it now gets rid of the path to any diplomatic solutions?
02:28Or do you think those diplomatic pathways remain open?
02:32Is there a way, in other words, to ease back that tension on both sides and get them both around the table again?
02:37Just very quickly to add, I'm not minimizing the economic impact of sanctions until now and moving forward.
02:46The distinction I'm making is getting an economic shock, because every time you get a big round of sanctions, there's also economic shock and it's downward.
02:54Of course, Iran has been wanting sanctions relief and sort of an escape from the current economic situation, which hasn't been successful.
03:02But anyways, yes, that stability with suffering, so a stable suffering of the economy.
03:08As far as diplomacy, no, I think the snapback move by Europe has narrowed the path to diplomacy very much, if not completely closed it.
03:18I think the Europeans used to have sort of this constructive role of the pro-diplomacy party.
03:25They provided the space, they provided the medium, a lot of mediation between Tehran and Washington, which always had a long, hard time negotiating.
03:33And now they've sort of lost that position and they're seen completely in the antagonistic camp with the U.S. from Tehran's view.
03:43And they've taken a path toward escalation.
03:45So this will minimize, maybe not completely closed, but it will really narrow the space for diplomacy moving forward.
03:53I just want to pick up on something you said there about the point of these sanctions is to create an economic shock.
03:59I mean, that's the short-term point of these.
04:02But, of course, the longer-term point of these sanctions is to try and curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions and their nuclear capability.
04:10How much do you think these new sanctions, the U.N. ones, will go towards achieving that ambition?
04:16I don't think they will, as sanctions in the past have not been able to.
04:22And many, many research time and again has shown this, not only in the case of Iran, but in the case of any other state that's been sanctioned.
04:31They do make the economy suffer.
04:34Sanctions do succeed in making average Iranians poorer and in a much worse economic situation.
04:42But they haven't succeeded in bringing change to state policy.
04:46They haven't in the case of Iran.
04:48They haven't in the case of many other sanctioned countries.
04:51And it's more of a feel-good, I think, diplomatic move, as we've seen both for the U.S., essentially for the West.
04:58It's their path to more escalation without actual conventional war.
05:04But, unfortunately, it hasn't really brought policy change.
05:07And I don't think it's going to bring policy change, as the 12-day war, the actual military attacks, didn't really bring policy change to Iran, at least not until now.
05:18Neger Mordazavi, thank you very much indeed for that, live from Washington, D.C.
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