US Won’t Ease Sanctions Early in Iran Negotiations

Iran Not Seeing Any Benefits From Diplomacy

The Obama Administration today said that they have no intention of easing any sanctions against Iran any time soon, and don’t intend to do so at all “at the front end” of the ongoing negotiations with the nation.

With the negotiations expected to take months to sort out all of the minor details, that means Iran isn’t going to be seeing any near-term benefits from their diplomacy push, and rather Iran’s international trade is still falling under the existing sanctions.

In practice, the Obama Administration is struggling to keep Congress from imposing new sanctions, let alone ease any, so to some extent the position is a pragmatic one.

South Africa has said it hopes to start selling corn and vegetable oil to Iran as soon as the sanctions ease enough that such sales wouldn’t be a violation of international law. That could take quite some time, it seems.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.