Remarks to Middle East Petroleum & UN/US Sanctions ’98 conference, London, United Kingdom
“For all the advantages sanctions offer to their sponsors — a signal of disapproval to the offending government, a well-publicized display of moral rectitude by the President and Congress, a course of action carrying very little risk to American interests — they lack the one attribute that ought to be the acid test of a policy proposal, namely the ability to produce the desired result. Sanctions have shown very little capacity to persuade targeted governments to change the offending behavior at issue.”
