Analyst's note:  Stronger specific, workable sanctions for Iran have been mentioned in open forum before.  Why have we not employed them?

Iran’s suspected illicit nuclear program can be stopped militarily by hitting targets other than the country’s nuclear sites, the former chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency said today in a rare interview.

“You don’t need to hit only the immediate, direct nuclear infrastructure of theirs,” said Shabtai Shavit, who served as Mossad director from 1989 to 1996. “You can achieve this goal by going after some other targets, without (my) being more specific.”

Shavit was speaking in an interview on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio.

Shavit was responding to a hypothetical question about whether a U.S. military strike successfully could eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Some of Iran’s scattered nuclear installations are known to be deep underground, with some reportedly positioned atop civilian zones.

[....] Shavit said the international community is rightly focusing on sanctions to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

[....] “I do believe if these sanctions will be executed they will make things worse for Iran’s general situation. Yet in order to get Iran to stop their nonconventional experiment, sanctions should be more comprehensive,” Shavit said. “In addition to the purchase of crude oil, the Western world should stop selling Iran oil products, since Iran doesn’t have the domestic capability to refine oil.”

Shavit also said sanctions should target Iran’s central bank.

“Such a package,” he said, “may impose on the Iranians to do serious thoughts to meet the Western world’s demands from them.”