If you're not in the habit of reading Stratfor intelligence briefs, you should be. Today, George Freidman takes a good look at the possibility that sanctions might be imposed by the international community - the important crucible here being the P5 + 1 - and he gives dispassionate and worthy assessment.

The Iranian government has rejected, at least for the moment, a proposal from the P-5+1 to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. The group is now considering the next step in the roadmap that it laid out last April. The next step was a new round of sanctions, this time meant to be crippling. The only crippling sanction available is to cut off the supply of gasoline, since Iran imports 35 percent of its refined gasoline products.

Ok, so, good plan?

Well, that depends, as it usually does.

Do sanctions work? Well, that depends, too. What is the goal? Is the goal to induce the kind of behaviour you want the subject of the sanctions to perform? If so, consider:

Imposing an effective sanctions regime on a country is difficult for two reasons. First, economic pain does not translate into political pressure. (That is, sometimes sanctions are designed to create domestic unrest - reminiscent of siege warfare - and make a continuation of the offending behaviour impossible.) Second, creating effective economic pain normally requires a coalition. The United States is not in a position to unilaterally impose effective sanctions. In order to do that, it must act in concert with other countries that are prepared not only to announce sanctions but - and this is far more important and difficult - also to enforce them. This means that it must be in the political interest of all countries that deal with the target to impose the sanctions.

As Freidman explains in his piece, enforcing sanctions is the real issue. Remember Iraq? The sanctions regime, emplaced following the Gulf War, became a farce by the time of the Iraq War. The US and UK were blocking Iraq from importing fairly basic medical supplies because they could conceivably be used for malign or military purposes. China, Russia, France and myriad other states flagrantly undermined the sanctions regime by continuing to trade with Iraq. There' an element of stag-hunt involved: we can all agree to work co-operatively on something, but there may be incentive to forgo the sanctions regime if doing so puts you at a comparative advantage relative to other sanctions-imposing states.

But what if the whole point of sanctions is to avoid war?

But sanctions have one virtue: They delay or block military action. So long as sanctions are being considered or being imposed, the argument can be made to those who want military action that it is necessary to give the sanctions time to work. Therefore, in this case, sanctions allow the United States to block any potential military actions by Israel against Iran while appearing domestically to be taking action. Should the United States wish to act, the sanctions route gives the Europeans the option of arguing that military action is premature. Furthermore, if military action took place without Russian approval while Russia was cooperating in a sanctions regime, it would have increased room to maneuver against U.S. interests in the Middle East, portraying the United States as trigger-happy.

The ultimate virtue of sanctions is that they provide a platform between acquiescence and war. The effectiveness of that platform is not nearly as important as the fact that it provides a buffer against charges of inaction and demands for further action. In Sudan, for example, no one expects sanctions to work, but their presence allows business to go on as usual while deflecting demands for more significant action.

Ok, so sanctions provide political cover. If we quite reasonably assume that sanctions will fail as a process and will fail to achieve their expressed purposes, we are then apparently supposed to settle with merely securing some political cover.

Read: trade suffers, economic activity is stifled, sanctions fail, offending behaviour continues, Iranian regime may be politically bolstered, but..... everyone walks away looking tough.

Wow. What a deal.