At this point, the JCPOA calls for a lifting of a lot of the sanctions, but not all of them. It's been pretty clear on paper at least that it's the nuclear-related sanctions that are lifted. Other non-nuclear sanctions are not lifted, whether it's for human rights, for support for terrorism, or other issues. Some of that was discussed by the other witness.
At this point, because the relationship with Iran remains adversarial, we may wish for more rapprochement, or no more, but it does remain adversarial. Again, as was discussed by the other witness, sanctions remain an effective tool of leverage for Canada, for the U.S., for the P5+1, for the west as a whole.
I don't recall exactly what was the context when I wrote those words. In my view, the challenge with sanctions that Canada is currently dealing with in the very narrow context of Canada's objectives is that we can't lift some of these sanctions. Even though the built-in procedures to lift these sanctions on paper are relatively straightforward and simple, the politics around them and the path dependency that was built in through the process has institutionalized and has routinized the sanctions in many ways.
Now Canada is stuck with some of these sanctions. The current government wants to lift them, but it is extremely difficult to do so. That is very problematic, I find, for the simple reason that the country has painted itself into a corner, and it can't just say, “Well, I'll walk on the paint.” Canada has cornered itself. It has tied its hands with these sanctions and would like to move forward but can't because it is very difficult. That, I think, is bad policy from a very technical perspective because movement is almost impossible.