Admit it. You can totally see Vice President Biden rallying the troops by reminding us that we didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. Heck, that could be the president's line.
But you can bet that we'll impose sanctions on Iran given time.
In theory, sanctions are intended to push another country into policies we want:
In general, sanctions are some sort of penalty imposed on a country designed to cause it sufficient pain to elicit a change in its behavior. Sanctions are intended as an alternative to war and therefore exclude violence. Thus, the entire point of sanctions, as opposed to war, is to compel changes of behavior in countries without resorting to force.
In theory. In practice, there are other reasons to apply sanctions:
The difficulty of creating effective sanctions raises the question of why they are used. The primary answer is that they allow a nation to appear to be acting effectively without enduring significant risks. Invading a country, as the United States found in Iraq, poses substantial risks. The imposition of sanctions on relatively weaker countries without the ability to counter the sanctions is much less risky. The fact that it is also far less effective is compensated for by the lowered risk.
In truth, many sanction regimes are enforced as political gestures, either for domestic political reasons, or to demonstrate serious intent on the international scene. In some cases, sanctions are a way of appearing to act so that military action can be deferred. No one expects the sanctions to change the regime or its policies, but the fact that sanctions are in place can be used as an argument against actions by other nations.
And we all know that Russia and China won't back biting UN sanctions--let alone the Europeans, so we will simply have sanctions of the willing. And breathe a sigh of relief that this signifies action.
And Iran will survive them. They aren't even on double secret IAEA probation, or anything.
