Anyone who rebels against the government in Iran he is threatened with death. Nevertheless, new protest movements have repeatedly emerged in recent years; most recently at the end of December, which probably reached its greatest extent at the end of last week. And then brutally crushed by the security forces became.
Human rights organizations speak of 2,000 to 12,000 deaths, a new dimension of state violence. According to reports, even unarmed refugees were targeted from rooftops, security forces camouflaged with a veil mingled with the protesters, and allied militias from Iraq and Lebanon took part in the crackdown. An internet blockage prevents people from organizing and images from getting out.
What should the world do in light of these images? Intervene militarilyas US President Donald Trump has suggested?
This is not an option for Europeans; They are relying on new EU sanctions against Iran. A sanctions package from the EU Commission is expected next week, which the EU foreign ministers will then have to adopt unanimously.
According to plans by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), one of the most powerful organizations in the Iranian state, are to be placed on the EU terror list. Germany is also pushing for it.
This would mean that EU governments would no longer be able to have normal diplomatic relations with Iran. In addition, any member of the IRGC could be legally prosecuted in Europe. Business with them would be prohibited and their accounts and assets would be frozen. Entry bans could be imposed against them and those around them.
Von der Leyen: “The sanctions will hurt”
But the council is facing a block on the project. The EU foreign policy is subject to the unanimity principle and several countries have already expressed concerns, including France, Italy and Spain.
As they try to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, they don’t want to lose diplomatic access. The regime also keeps Western tourists in custody as a bargaining chip. You want to bring these people back home.
“The sanctions will hurt,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday at a press conference for a meeting of EU commissioners with the EU Council Presidency in Cyprus. “They will weaken the regime and push it towards its end.”
Diba Mirzaei, Iran researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (Giga), is less optimistic. “It is controversial among experts as to whether classifying the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization would have any additional effect,” she told the taz. “Several of its members are already subject to comprehensive sanctions, including entry restrictions and asset freezes.”
These existing sanctions measures are even more extensive than mere terrorist listing. “More effective would be targeted additional sanctions against individual members of the Revolutionary Guards and against representatives of the political leadership,” said Mirzaei.
Mirzaei’s assessments are shared by the political analyst Barbara Mittelhammer: “The terrorist listing has primarily a symbolic effect,” she told the taz. “Sanctions research shows that sanctions have a very poor track record as an instrument for regime change. The reasons include, among other things, that governments often develop resistance and actually learn from and cooperate with each other in order to circumvent sanctions.” But an uncoordinated approach to enforcing the sanctions also weakens their effect; according to Mittelhammer, this applies to everything from entry controls to financial transactions.
Sanctions as a tool for regime change have a very poor track record
Barbara Mittelhammer, political analyst
“The Iranian regime has repeatedly found ways to circumvent existing sanctions,” Mirzaei confirms.
The consequences of the sanctions for the civilian population
Another problem: Instead of the authoritarian elites, the population bears the costs of sanctions, which the regimes in turn use to invoke national unity.
At the same time, the economic weakening of the population is sometimes part of the strategy of sanctions policy: the aim is to turn people against their state leadership and thus initiate change from within.
Economic security is a central prerequisite for making protests, strikes or civil society engagement possible at all.
Diba Mirzaei, Iran researcher
The two experts contradict this logic. “Existing financial sanctions make it considerably more difficult for people with family roots in Iran to support their relatives financially. Economic security is a central prerequisite for making protests, strikes or civil society engagement possible at all,” explains Mirzaei.
Ultimately, sanctions could even make the fall of the regime more difficult. “Broad sanctions weaken the ability to act and the resilience of society, civil society and political mobilization potential,” says Mittelhammer. “So exactly the forces that are needed for successful regime change.”
And in the end, the European foreign policy approach will probably remain one thing: ineffective.