Next stop Cuba?
Governments and publics tend to see sanctions as a solution to every problem, especially where they don't want to have to actually pay or sacrifice anything. They think it's a freebie, a way to get something done witout putting any skin in the game: 'We don't want to risk any lives or have to give anything up to get what we want - let's use sanctions!' Note that you won't see sanctions where it will have a serious economic impact on the sanctioning country; for example, the U.S. isn't going to enact significant trade sanctions on China.
Also, sanctions tend to have the harshest effects on the most vulnerable. In the kinds of countries that are sanctioned, the poor starve and their unelected oppressors continue to live affluent lives.
That's why in the the last decade or two, the U.S. and others have used the tactic of targeted sanctions, aimed specifically at the people in power. Sanctions freeze their personal assets in overseas banks (where they often stash their money), deny access to western markets and financial services for the businesses run by them and their leading supporters, etc. Apparently, denying the leaders travel visas to the west has a real impact (perhaps they lose status when then can't take their families on vacation to Paris and New York?).
It seems to have accomplished something in Iran (but at what cost to the poor and oppressed there?). It hasn't worked yet in North Korea, and their population already is starving. Cuban sanctions are, I think, the old-fashioned non-targeted sanctions and have been ineffective or at least clearly insufficient. Also, as I said, it's not the right tool for every job.
My point was the opposite: Sanctions in Iran worked because they were targeted at the higher ups and made them suffer. (Edit: I'm not trying to go back and forth with you, just clarifying what I meant because it seemed misunderstood.)
> I think Iran could see another uprising on the horizon, which I guess is the point of making the people suffer.
I believe that research shows that this never works. I don't want to say never, but I can't think of a situation when it has worked.
Did it stop Iran from creating a nuclear program? No. Did it allow for a change in government? No.
Mainly the people who suffered most were the common people of Iran. The government in Iran took advantage of this situation to radicalize people against the US even more.
It has stopped their nuclear program - see the news. More specifically, it didn't make it impossible for them to build nukes, but it motivated them to stop in order to get the sanctions relieved.
(Of course we all are talking speculativly, unless a someone very high in the Iranian government, who knows their motives, is posting on HN.)
This is very US centric but still interesting. http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/green-movement
>The Green Movement reached its height when up to 3 million peaceful demonstrators turned out on Tehran streets to protest official claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the 2009 presidential election in a landslide. Their simple slogan was: “Where is my vote?”