The Politics of the U.S. Economic Sanctions Against Iran

Abstract

This article analyzes the circumstances under which the United States has enacted major sanctions against Iran since 1979. As such, it examines the 1979 U.S. freeze of the Iranian government's assets, the role of the sanctions in the “dual containment policy” of the United States in the 1980s, the role of Israel in formulating and implementing the sanctions policy of the United States in the 1990s, the concerted lobbying efforts of U.S. corporations to combat the sanctions, and the incoherent and inconsistent U.S. sanctions policy toward Iran that emerged in the late 1990s.