The Role of Psychological Operations in the Process of Oil Embargo against the Islamic Republic of Iran

Adoption of coercive economic measures is considered one of the effective forms of strategic psychological operations and a tool which contributes to its more desirable influence. Economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran entered a new phase in 2012 with the multilateral, multifaceted and multilayered embargo against Iran's oil industry. However, in spite of the sensitivity of energy fluctuations, lack of disruption in the energy market despite the discourse governing the technical and political reports and the expectation emanating from the geo-energy and geo-political position of Iran raises this assumption that in spite of the impact of energy security on the security of the Western countries, utilization of psychological operations tactics helped the West to impose oil embargo on Iran as a key component of economic sanctions process with the lowest cost. This research work, carried out on the basis of the applied, analytic-descriptive method, indicates that utilization of psychological operations along with the oil embargo was aimed at a) making the sanctions multilateral, b) assuring the West of energy security particularly reducing the harmful effects stemming from of omission Iran’s oil resources on the European Union and c) reinforcing the effects of sanctions inside Iran aimed at destabilization of the government; nonetheless, this measure has proved to be one the essential tools of reducing the adverse impacts of oil embargo on Iran.