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The unintended consequences of Iran's arms embargo

The UN arms embargo on Iran, an instrument of duress over the nuclear issue, does not reflect geopolitical realities and must be lifted — and soon, as the situation with IS grows ever more urgent.
Two Iranian clerics stand near a surface to surface missile which is ready to be launched during a war game near the city of Qom, about 120 km (75 miles) south of Tehran June 28, 2011. REUTERS/Mehr News Agency/Rauf Mohseni (IRAN - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY RELIGION) QUALITY FROM SOURCE. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS - RTR2O6NX

Since the UN Security Council took over Iran's nuclear dossier in 2006, it has issued a number of resolutions that cumulatively impose a stringent arms embargo on Iran. These restrictions on Iran's conventional weapons capabilities were mostly adopted under US pressure and greatly differ from other typical arms embargoes imposed by the United Nations.

While arms embargoes by the UN are usually "counteractive measures" in reaction to an ongoing civil war, a war of aggression, genocide, an illegal coup, war crimes and other serious humanitarian crises, the arms embargo against Iran is an unprecedented coercive measure that seeks to pressure the country into making concessions on its nuclear program at the negotiating table. In other words, unlike in the cases of Afghanistan, Angola, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Sudan or Yugoslavia, where the embargoes' function was actually to prevent an unfolding disaster or to quickly restore security, in Iran's case, it is used as an instrument of duress over an issue that has nothing to do with conventional weapons.

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