The latest wave of sanctions against Iran took effect on Sunday. Large quantities of Iranian oil are reportedly anchored off the coast, with a dwindling number of countries to buy Iran’s crude.

The sweeping sanctions imposed on Iran to pressure Tehran into dismantling its nuclear enrichment programme have dealt a major blow the country’s private sector and led to increasing inflation.

The European Union embargo against Iranian oil is expected to cut Iran’s crude exports by at least a third.

Iran continues to sell its oil to a limited number of countries that are permitted to continue the imports on the condition that they limit the quantities as best they can.

Reports say countries like China are getting Iranian oil at discounted prices because of the limited number of buyers. On the other hand, the European countries which used to buy Iranian oil have to shift to alternative supplies that are becoming costly.

The relatively cheap prices for Iranian oil for Iran and higher costs for European countries work on Beijing’s favour and come at Europe’s expense. Chinese industrial production has become cheaper while European countries have to pay more. That is the price Europe has to pay for their ban on oil imports from Iran.

The West hopes that the sanctions will eventually persuade Iranian leaders to abandon their nuclear programme. But that is a conventional view that is not applicable to Iran, which does not have what could be described as rational thinking.

The West’s objective is to bring about more internal pressure on Iran to the point that the theocratic regime will have to choose between its own survival or the country’s nuclear programme. It could be true and the regime would move to protect itself. However, the regime’s leaders see the two issues are interlinked.

For them, the continuation of the country’s nuclear programme and maintaining its 1979 revolution as something sacred are central pillars of preservation of the regime. Abandoning the nuclear programme means bowing to external pressure, and that is something the Iranian leaders would never do because they would “lose face” as leaders of the Iranian revolution, which they project as capable of surviving any challenge.

As far as the Iranian leaders are concerned, climbing down from their defiant stand against international pressure is unthinkable. They consider themselves as the standard bearer of resistance in the Islamic world against “Western imperialism.”

In practical terms, the Iranian leaders might even be considering sanctions a benefit since they could project the resulting suffering as the cost the Iranians have to pay for not letting the revolution suffer.

In the immediate term, the West is unlikely to find much success in realising its objective of forcing Tehran to dismantle its nuclear enrichment programme. That would need a dramatic switch of policies by the existing leaders of Iran or they should be replaced by people with more moderate and accommodating thinking. There is no sign of either.