Comment by busterarm

1 month ago

Lifting sanctions just helps the mullahs flex their power on Iranian civilians. Lifted sanctions means more suffering for Iranian people and people abroad suffering from Iran-funded terrorist groups.

'To help the civillians we must starve them with total economic sanctions until they overthow their government' comes off as cynical and depraved (in hindsight of similar actions in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and also Iran ) and i no longer subscribe to it.

  • I'm not sure it's about helping get civilians.

    Sanctions for Iran is about limiting their economic growth. So that they are less effective should they try to attack their neighbors.

    Civilians in a dictatorship are probably not entirely with responsibility for the regime actions either.

    Regimes can rarely survive without supporters.

> Lifting sanctions just helps the mullahs flex their power on Iranian civilians

I am not sure how you're imagining this. Showing that they can buy an American iPhone, for example, is a worse "flex of power" than killing 30k protestors? I just don't get what is the supposed power flex without sanctions gonna be.

The purpose of sanctions is (everytime) actually different. It's to break the civilians so they would revolt against the government. So with sanctions, you're hurting civilians by definition. It might be "for the greater good", but it's certainly amoral approach in my book.

This is such an absurd analysis that it is bewildering anyone would post it.

  • Lifting the sanctions doesn't suddenly make their government, regulation or economy stable. Their biggest companies are all government-owned and famously corrupt and mismanaged.

    This is criticism given from most of the region when the topic of lifting sanctions comes up. Nothing I said is novel or extreme.

    In fact, we have direct evidence of what happens when those sanctions are lifted from when it was done under the Biden administration. They expanded their nuclear program and expanded funding to their regional proxies to carry out terror campaigns. The Houthis attacked global shipping lines and October 7th happened. That's not theoretical.

    Btw, I'm of Iranian descent.

    • > October 7th happened.

      This is a weird thing to say to me. You're saying that keeping sanctions on Iran is important to prevent another October 7 because Iran was funding Hamas? Okay, but then wouldn't it be better to put sanctions on Israel, since they're the aggressive, colonizing, occupying force?

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    • > Lifting the sanctions doesn't suddenly make their government, regulation or economy stable

      True we only sanction them because it's funny.

      I don't really care what descent you are, anyone can have a bad opinion of American foreign policy. There are tons of people right now in America who are Iranian that are screaming for a crazy monarch to take power.

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