It is easy to become cynical when reading and listening to pronouncements on Iran sanctions in Washington.
Are our officials really talking about “economic” sanctions? If so, do these experts have some economic training? Some familiarity with how economic sanctions are supposed to work? Some first-hand knowledge of Iran’s economic vulnerabilities?
Why does Washington flip-flop, one day espousing “crippling” sanctions on Iran and the next day saying that sanctions cannot work because of Chinese and possibly Russian opposition? Is America impotent? The next day we read that either the “Green Movement,” or the broader Iranian opposition, or even Iranian Americans are against crippling sanctions because they would only hurt the poor in Iran and turn the citizenry against the United States. Has America outsourced its foreign policy to the Chinese, the Greens or to Iranian Americans? How have the Greens, or for that matter anyone else, come to speak for the poor and the disenfranchised Iranians?
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