September 24, 2017

Iran's Post-Sanctions Financial Windfall Was Overstated. What Does That Mean for Policy?

By: Edoardo Saravalle and ​Neil Bhatiya

The Trump administration seems poised to scuttle the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Agreement (JCPOA). If it does, this decision will be a triumph for the deal’s critics, who have aggressively undersold the JCPOA’s achievements in limiting the country’s nuclear program and oversold the economic relief it gave Iran. Indeed, the discrepancy between what critics have said and what actually occurred should be a warning that assumptions circulated in the press about the economic benefits for Iran associated with the deal, and the supposed power that new unilateral U.S. sanctions could have on Iran, may be more political than empirical. American policymakers should ensure that these wrong assumptions do not inform U.S. foreign policy going forward.

Read the full op-ed in The National Interest.

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