Iran: Economic Sanctions Success Story?

Economic sanctions don't always get the best rap. Frustrated Middle East watchers and myriad Obama critics point to Iran as proof that sanctions aren't coercive, but the detractors may have spoken too soon.

FP's The Cable blog (which, incidentally, has impressed me with its coverage of the Syrian chemical weapons story) put up a new piece this Friday on the reputation of Hasan Rouhani, Iran's new president, in the US intelligence community. Former IC officials who met Rouhani during the Reagan administration say he struck them as a genuine moderate.

If they're right, his election could be a first step toward real progress on ending Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. But the article also mentions another contributing factor: the UN sanctions regime.

Even China has domestic politics

Drezner over at Foreign Policy seems surprised that China would be so belligerent towards Japan over custody of the Chinese fishing trawler captain. Drezner points out that China's apparent rare-earth embargo against Japan makes little sense internationally. A belligerent China is pushing the Pacific Rim towards Washington; according to Drezner, China doesn't seem to realize this. I think they must.

What's going wrong in our right system

Now, I know how Charlie feels about Thomas Friedman, and 9 times out of 10, I'm inclined to agree.  However, when I spotted a post on RCW's blog that started in a similar cynical manner, but argued that Thomas Friedman was actually making a legitimate point, I had to read on.  In his September 21st column in the New York Times, Friedman points out what is wrong with our system when comparing it to what China is doing right:

Studying China’s ability to invest for the future doesn’t make me feel we have the wrong system. It makes me feel that we are abusing our right system. There is absolutely no reason our democracy should not be able to generate the kind of focus, legitimacy, unity and stick-to-it-iveness to do big things — democratically — that China does autocratically. We’ve done it before. But we’re not doing it now because too many of our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful, more interested in defeating each other than saving the country.

If you want to read the rest of Friedman's column (if you haven't already), it's here.