Science of unintended consequences

Sir, If ever there was a clear-cut demonstration of the empirical validity of the core thesis of complexity theory – that everything is connected to everything else – then surely it must be the claim by Ian Bremmer and Clifford Kupchan that the more successful western sanctions are against Iran, the greater the likelihood that the global price of oil will increase, thereby undermining the US recovery and Barack Obama’s chances of re-election next November (“How to keep the pressure on Iran and avoid a rise in oil prices”, March 7).

Talk about unintended consequences, which have in recent years assumed the status of scientific law! That President Obama must privately ask India and China to, in effect, assume the status of sanctions-busters and continue to purchase Iranian oil to prevent the global price of oil from rising, as Mr Bremmer and Mr Kupchan argue, is part of the classic double bind, “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. If Mr Obama allows the sanctions to take full effect, the price of oil will increase; if India and China purchase Iranian oil, the Israelis will argue that sanctions have not worked and threaten again to attack Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, in which case the price of oil will also increase. An actual attack would result in catastrophic changes at multiple levels, not merely a further spike in the price of oil.

Either way, the price of oil goes up and Mr Obama loses the election in November – a bizarre, empirical confirmation of just how deleterious unintended consequences can be in the New World Disorder.