She loves me... she loves me not: Should we, should we not, impose sanctions on Iran?

As Iran seems to increasingly pressure other countries into a stand-off, I can’t help but be somewhat perplexed; closing the Strait of Hormuz where a lot of the world’s oil passes through will surely prompt an answer from many countries around the world. The roster for countries willing to impose sanctions on Iran, if not engage in an armed re-take, is sure to be long. For many countries, there is no other way; given the current economic situation rising oil prices would help kill some of the industries which already struggle. But how can Iran afford it? A few other questions occur to me as I speculate about the answer:

·         To what extent are economic sanctions even effective? Would a partial shutdown of transactions between many western countries and Iran be enough to discourage Iran from asserting force in the Strait? Are there some good examples of “successful” economic sanctions?

·         The basic gist of economic sanctions would be to disrupt an economy by limiting its access to the outside world. But, two things should make that difficult in Iran: Iran is a major exporter of oil and Russia/China would likely line up to get it at a discount when Western countries boycott it (while prices would in fact go up from other investors, passing some of the cost unto the sanctioning countries). More so, Iran has been under sanctions – on and off – for a long, long time (1979 for the US!). To what extent would the Iranian economy even be very responsive to sanction pressures? So long as China, Russia, Venezuela and more keep their economies open to Iran, it will have a market – for a good that surely will be bought.

·         Does Iran have industries which would be profoundly affected? Oil account for a majority of Iran’s income, and the “religious services industry” accounts for a pretty significant chunk as well. Are sanctions then best executed in freezing assets abroad? But surely, Iran figured out not to save its money in the West?

What could be a better approach, if not economic sanctions? Do we press for economic sanctions because that is the best tool we have available to us?

Looking around for opinions, it seems like we might as well pull the petals of a Zardkooh flower, hoping to discover the right answer when the last petal remains.