United States' Foreign Policy Toward Iran: Sanctions

Abstract

This thesis will follow a logical five-chapter flow: (1) Introduction, (2) a historical overview of the U.S. foreign policy toward Iran, (3) a theoretical discussion of the success of sanctions and an assessment of the success of U.S. sanctions on Iran, (4) an explanation of the current situation of the sanction policy with the help of game theory, and (5) a conclusion about the future of U.S. sanctions. Chapter II will provide a historical overview of the U.S.’s foreign policy toward Iran. This chapter will not cover all events, but will provide an overall historical background. This overview will be used in the second part of the thesis to assess U.S. sanctions and make distinctions among them. Chapter III will discuss the sanctions as a policy tool in a theoretical standpoint with a broader concept. Based on arguments in the literature and the facts, this chapter will put sanctions into categories and evaluate the probability of success for each one according to twenty-three considerations that are crucial for the success of sanctions. This chapter will also provide a history of U.S. sanctions on Iran and apply the twenty-three considerations to the case of U.S. sanctions, and then assess their success. Chapter IV will examine U.S. sanctions with a game theory approach and explain the strategic moves available for the U.S. Finally, in Chapter V, based on the insights from the assessments and the game theory, a conclusion about the future of U.S. sanctions will be presented.