Sanctions

Financial sanctions have become a key tool of U.S. foreign policy. Measures taken against Iran and North Korea make clear that this new financial statecraft can be effective, but true success will require persuading global banks to accept a shared sense of risk.

Sanctions slapped on foreign countries by U.S. cities and states are starting to be struck down by the courts, and rightly so. America can afford only one foreign policy.

The Clinton administration supports crippling economic sanctions that punish the Iraqi people but seems ready to live with the demise of international inspections to monitor Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. Washington has it exactly backward. It should offer Baghdad a blunt trade: lightened sanctions in return for renewed, intrusive arms inspections. The sweeping sanctions regime does nothing to advance U.S. interests, undermine Saddam, or contain Iraq. Leaving Saddam's arsenal unwatched is folly. Better to have arms inspections without sanctions than sanctions without arms inspections.

Sanctions are a huge slice of the U.S. foreign policy pie -- even cities employ them. Officials like them because they see them as cheaper and cleaner than war. But in the real world, they are expensive, both diplomatically and fiscally, and seldom work. At most they starve large populations while leaving hostile leaders unscathed. If foreign corporations feel they need the ayatollah's business, slapping them with third-party sanctions only alienates their governments further. Policymakers need to think harder before they rush to push the sanctions button.