Walter Russell Mead jumps at the chance to push for regime change:
But using all the diplomatic and economic tools at America’s disposal to help the Iranian people’s fight for freedom is both the right thing to do and the best way to advance U.S. interests at a critical time.
The time for action is now.
The best thing that the US can do for the Iranian people is to take its boot off their necks by lifting as many broad sanctions on their economy as possible as quickly as possible. That is the only useful “economic tool” that the US has to offer in this case, and we know in advance that this is not what Mead is talking about. Right on cue, he proposes pursuing “snapback” sanctions at the U.N. to inflict even more damage on ordinary Iranians in the name of “helping” them. Despite ample evidence that broad sanctions have immiserated Iranians and empowered regime hardliners, Mead’s answer is to intensify the economic war that has already caused so much needless suffering. The Iranian people have endured quite enough of this kind of “assistance,” and they certainly don’t need a heavier burden laid upon them by outsiders. Calling for more intense sanctions after the failure of more than four years of “maximum pressure” is not much better than sadism under the circumstances.
Iranian protesters have been using the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” and broad sanctions have been an attack on each one of these. Iranian women have borne the brunt of the economic war. They are the ones that have been more likely to lose jobs, and they are among those ones that have been disproportionately harmed by the economic pressures caused by sanctions. Financial sanctions have severely impeded the importing of medicines and raw materials needed to produce medicines domestically, and sick and vulnerable Iranians have been the ones to suffer and in some cases die as a result. Iran under sanctions has also become a more authoritarian and oppressed country. No one who sympathizes with the protesters’ desire for greater freedom can support existing sanctions, much less advocate for more of them.
Mead continues, “Assuring the Iranian people that normal economic relations would quickly follow the establishment of a law-abiding government in Tehran would encourage regime opponents.” Why would most Iranians believe any assurances from a government that reneged on its past commitments to theirs? Why would any new Iranian government be able to trust in promises of sanctions relief in the future? Regardless, these promises are pie-in-the-sky since it is extremely unlikely that the current system will be brought down by these protests. Making sanctions relief contingent on regime change isn’t going to hasten that change, but it would make it impossible to negotiate anything with the current system for as long as it remains in power. That is, of course, exactly how hardliners in the US like things to be.
Read the rest of the article at SubStack
Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
Sanctions, and embargo’s don’t hurt the ruling class. Just the peasents get that end of the stick.
The US has imposed sanctions on many nations and it hurt the average peoples and not the governments. They did not cause the people to rise up and overthrow their leaders. The Iraq War is what led to Saddam Hussein’s downfall and not the sanctions. Fidel Castro has been in power for decades and so has the Kim Family and that did not lead to their downfalls.
The Cuban embargo was voted down 185-2. The two? Do I have to tell ya?
And? By my count that’s 187 assorted aholes. There are no angels in this.
Worked well in Iraq. Billie’s sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi children.
I see Antiwar is now linking to outright lies by the Marxist Mojahedin-e-Khalq, supported by the U.S. and moved from their base in Iraq to Albania. When they aren’t murdering professors, technicians and physicists in Iran and Iraq, they love to exploit any situation and pose as “ordinary Iranians”.
Antiwar is now prominently featuring a link to “The Libertarian Institute” hosting a story by one Muhammad Sahimi claiming that the Kurd Mahsa Amini was murdered.
That’s a lie.
It’s an easily debunked lie. There is a SECURITY VIDEO showing the Kurd in a room full of a dozen women, where she is talking to a female police officer. Then she collapses to the floor, clearly a heart attack. Everything was calm and she was clearly not injured as she just got there.
But here’s Antiwar’s preferred headline, obviously as you link to it:
“The Murder of Mahsa Amini, Iranians’ Quest for a Democratic State, and the Role of Outside Forces”
The Marxist claims that “eyewitnesses” claimed the woman had been beaten. NO MENTION OF THE TAPE. She was brought there and was talking in a room full of other women who had been brought there. Everyone was calm and there was zero sign of injuries.
This was immediately exploited by U.S. media who claimed she was “beaten to death”. Then they claimed the riots were “protests”. The rioters attack and beat police and civilians alike. The riots are organized by Baluchi separatists and by the Marxist Kurd separatists. These are the CIA’s favorite groups. They start violence any chance they get. Now they were lucky enough to have a death at a police station to exploit.
Antiwar’s link says the “protests” are “led by young people,” a highlight typical of U.S. media and the CIA playbook.
If only Muhammad Saimi who wrote the propaganda could have used a camera to find an attractive young woman in the crowd! That’s a MUST! While the other side should be shown to be grim-looking old men.
And “democracy”? Laughable. The “democracy” of the Marxist PKK in Syria, where they are ethnically cleansing the region under their control? Throwing out Arabs from their homes? Depriving other Arabs of electricity? With U.S. aid.
Iran already has democracy. It even has seats in parliament reserved for Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian representatives. Something U.S. media mention, oh, zero times.
But they also ban certain candidates from running for the presidency. This is a country with violent groups with outside funding, eager to exploit any situation to tear up the country like in Iraq and Syria. I know plenty of Iranians who live in the West and don’t like to wear veils (The veils! the veils in Iran! We must fight to lift the veil law!) but who know that the government must restrict the separatist groups, or they’d exploit what they’d laugh at as weakness. Rest assured, once they’d get any power in their areas, they wouldn’t show the same weakness.
Of course we want to hurt Iranian people — of course. This is the idea. Let them get poor and start fighting each other. And if not we will help them. Any problem arising in the country – someone’s desth in prison. a flood, an inflation — there are plenty of agitators organizing young and gullable into protest. What is new?
Yes, nothing new. Including American people not getting it — while paying for it.