Three Indicted in Oil-for-Food Sanctions Busting

The US government indicted three people yesterday in what is likely to be the tip of the iceberg in the oil-for-food sanctions investigation. The Bush administration and its supporters are out for blood as it makes the UN look corrupt and/or incompetent. This would "justify" the Bushite hostility to the UN, and in part, "excuse" the unilateralism of the attack on Iraq. But that is to miss the big picture. Economic sanctions are ineffective and inefficient in bringing pressure to bear on a foreign government.

The UN-approved oil-for-food program arose in an attempt to mitigate the harm done to innocent Iraqis by the broader set of sanctions imposed after the First Gulf War. The hope was that by selling oil on the world market under intense scrutiny Iraqis would not starve. Whether it ever could have succeeded is neither here nor there. Sanctions in their broadest sense hurt the Iraqi people more than they did the Saddamite regime's hierarchy. And in attempting to fix that, the world community opened the door to abuse and corruption even wider.

Now, economic sanctions should not be confused with restraints on trade designed to address trade negotiations. These tend to be very tightly targeted, they tend not to target business relationships or consumers who are not part of a specific industry, and they tend to go away as soon as some small policy changes are made. Economic sanctions target the entire economy in an attempt to topple a regime or alter a fundamental policy in a very radical way. Those who believe in sanctions usually point to the role they played in toppling the apartheid regime in South Africa. This is a misreading of recent history. The armed resistance of the black population and the over extension of the military of the South African regime in fighting Cuban and Angolan troops in Southwest Africa (now Namibia) eventually forced the regime to change.

The economic sanctions against Iraq did not remove the regime. The trade embargo against Cuba by the US has been a joke -- with most other countries in the world ignoring it. The reason, according to economists, is easy to understand. Their taste for trade with Cuba exceeds their taste for toppling Castro. Sanction busting, not surprisingly, pays better than regular trade, and those prepared to smuggle can make a great deal of money. Moreover, they will have a government willing to assist in busting the sanctions. When one has a sovereign state helping, it's hard to fail at making money.

There will be more indictments in the oil-for-food case, and the persecutions/prosecutions are both politically and morally driven. And there is a certain merit to moral indignation against the sanction busters -- this was, after all, a violation of world opinion. But by the same token, world opinion was wrong because it opted for an approach that never works.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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