Taking on Tehran and the development of nuclear weapons

Are sanctions really the way the way to stop Iran?

The idea is to drive the “hassle factor up”, says Mark Dubovitz, executive director at the Washington, DC-based Foundations for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Cut Iran’s oil exports, runs the argument, deny its regime access to international trade, starve its economy of cash, and it will drop what Western governments claim is a programme to develop atomic weapons. Dubovitz and the FDD are the stars of this show. EU governments have accepted their thesis that oil receipts are sustaining Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and keeping the nuclear dream alive. Backing up the FDD’s argument in European capitals earlier this year was a delegation from Tel Aviv, which arrived after the lobby group to warn