Thank you very much for that question.
In our assessment we developed an approach to try to assess the effectiveness of sanctions. We differentiate among the various purposes. We evaluate the question. Was Iran coerced to changing its position on the weaponization of its nuclear program? Was Iran constrained, by which we mean, were the costs raised? Did it change its strategy in some way? Was Iran effectively signalled? Was the message clearly articulated? Importantly, was there some degree of stigmatization of Iran? It's not just the clarity of the message, but a sense of some degree of stigmatization in some areas.
The other thing we do when we look at evaluating effectiveness is differentiate country regimes by what we call episodes. In the Iran sanctions regime, we define an episode as a change in the nature of the sanction being applied, the target of the sanction, or the purpose of the sanction.
Over the course of the period from 2006 until the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action last year, we identified five different sanctions episodes in Iran. All of this information is available either at sanctionsapp.com or on our app device—which, by the way, I'm not selling; it's free and available. It may not work on BlackBerry, though. That may be a problem in Canada; I'm not sure.
Particularly with regard to the most recent phase, we found and made the argument that the sanctions were effective, but in the following way. They weren't effective on their own. The sanctions were effective in forcing a change in behaviour not because they brought Iran to the bargaining table—Iran had been negotiating through this period. The changes are multiple. I said earlier that sanctions are always applied in conjunction with other policy instruments. I think there are two other significant developments that led to the JCPOA, one of which was a change in the bargaining position of the E3-plus-3, or the P5-plus-1, depending which side of the Atlantic you are looking at the issue from.
Previous to 2015 there was a total prohibition on any enrichment, so the E3-plus-3 changed their negotiating position. The combination of intensified sanctions, and this is the point I made about multilateralizing, brought Europe on board and brought many other countries on board, with even trade reduction from India, from China up to a point, from Korea and Japan. It was a comprehensive strategy. That was very important, but the sanctions alone did not produce the change. It's the change in bargaining position and, I would say, certain elements of luck. The election of President Rouhani in 2013, which was not expected by most specialists of Iranian politics, also created an enabling environment. To make the sanctions effective, you needed to have some degree of luck. You also needed to have it coordinated closely with bargaining and negotiations. I would argue that this, plus sanctions, resulted in an effective outcome.
I'm sorry for the long dissertation on that, but we've thought a lot about this.