{mosads}The report’s authors and signers say they are not advocating for any specific outcome, but they conclude that the current sanctions don’t appear to be having the desired effect. 

“It seems doubtful to us that the current severe sanctions regime will significantly affect the decisionmaking of Iran’s leaders — any more than past sanctions did — barring some willingness on the part of sanctioning countries to combine continued pressure with positive signals and decisions on matters of great interest to Iran,” they write.

The report was drafted by William Luers, Iris Bieri and Priscilla Lewis, the director, coordinator and editor, respectively, of the Iran Project. It is signed by 38 former members of Congress, senior diplomats, military and business leaders and regional experts.

“This report seeks to understand how the 30-plus years of layered Iran sanctions with multiple and different objectives help or complicate the U.S. goal of reaching an agreement that would head off Iran having a nuclear weapon,” retired U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering said Thursday before introducing the report at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event.