Open thread for night owls: Making the Iranian economy (and Iranians) scream

At Dissident Voice, Ben Schreiner writes Sanctioning Iran: Punishing the Crime of Defiance:

It is often argued [...] that sanctions ' imperfect as they are'offer an alternative to war. As Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in a recent Washington Post op-ed, 'a reckless shortcut to war'is not the wisest response to a potentially grave crisis.'  Instead, Brzezinski goes on to argue that, 'A more prudent and productive course for the United States would be to continue the painful sanctions against Iran.' But such arguments by sanction enthusiasts obscure the fact that sanctions are indeed an act of war.  After all, what else are we to call the deliberate crippling of a nation's economy?  And in any case, if the American economy were made to scream, we can be assured there would be American bombs aplenty. What's more, though, not only are sanctions clearly an act of war, they often serve as a prelude to an escalated confrontation.  And one certainly need not venture far beyond Iran to find evidence of Washington's favored sanction today, invade tomorrow strategy. 'Targeted' Sanctions The second lie so often accompanying the use of sanctions is that they are somehow 'targeted.'  In the case of Iran, the true nature of the supposedly 'targeted' sanctions was exposed well before the latest round of escalation. As a July letter from the Iranian Hemophilia Society written to the World Health Organization warned, sanctions have 'seriously endangered the lives of tens of thousands of patients, particularly children, suffering from special diseases.' Likewise, in an August report to the United Nation's General Assembly, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon wrote that, 'The sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran have had significant effects on the general population, including an escalation in inflation, a rise in commodities and energy costs, an increase in the rate of unemployment and a shortage of necessary items, including medicine.' Indeed, as a New York Times piece from early November reported, Iranians 'suffering from cancer, hemophilia, thalassemia, kidney problems and other diseases are increasingly told the foreign-made medicines they need are no longer available.' A recent report in the British Guardian newspaper, meanwhile, has noted that 'millions of lives are at risk in Iran because western economic sanctions are hitting the importing of medicines and hospital equipment.' But such reports have fallen on deaf ears in sanction-happy Washington. After all, for Washington, ordinary Iranians are legitimate targets. As U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, a co-sponsor of the latest Iran sanctions bill, once averred, 'It's okay to take the food out of the mouths of' innocent Iranians. Kirk was of course simply trying his best to channel Madeleine Albright, who, when asked in a 1996 appearance on 60 Minutes whether the half million dead Iraqi children due to sanctions was 'worth it,' coolly affirmed that, 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price ' we think the price is worth it.' [...]

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