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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/03
Iran and Iraq: Sanctions and Dual Containment - A View from the European Union
May 2000
Abstract
In recent years, many (non-American as well as American) analysts have put in question the wisdom and rationale of the US doctrine of the “dual containment” towards Iraq and Iran. Rather than being a strategic doctrine, the “dual containment” is a state of affairs reflecting the fact that the US was left without viable political options in the region by a set of mistakes whose cost it will be able to recover only in a more or less distant time: in particular, the full and blind support to the Shah’s regime against any nationalist, liberal and religious groups in the country and the support to Iraq in the war against Iran, which convinced the Iraqi ruling regime of being entitled to exercise in the region a kind of proconsular power and prepared the country politically and militarily to its unfortunate attempt at swallowing Kuwait.
This perspective is now recognised by the US leadership as well. In a recent statement referring to Iran, the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has recognised that “In 1953, the US played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. . . . Moreover, during the next quarter century the US and the West gave sustained backing to the Shah’s regime. Although it did much to develop the country economically, the Shah’s government also brutally repressed political dissent. . . . Even in more recent yearscost it will be able to recover only in a more or less distant time: in particular, the full and blind support to the Shah’s regime against any nationalist, liberal and religious groups in the country and the support to Iraq in the war against Iran, which ment” official posture, with its kit of tools of coercive diplomacy, like sanctions and military interventions. Although the statement may be interpreted as a harbinger of slow and cautious change towards Iran, a change of the overall US posture and a coherent Western policy towards the region look today still uncertain and difficult to achieve. This paper tries to outline present situations with respect to Iran and Iraq and sketch out prospects of Western and international coercive diplomacy towards the Gulf region with a focus on Iraq. It concludes by setting out some policy suggestions.
