Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh dress up the same failed sanctions approach as a “new approach” to Iran:
Since sanctions became serious in 2018, Iran has seen major demonstrations without protesters venting against America. The clerical regime views these protests as potential rebellions; we should, too.
The Biden administration says it wants to amp up the U.S. commitment to democratic values abroad. The biggest potential return on investment is in Iran. Mr. Khamenei’s selection of Mr. Raisi should tell the White House it has nothing now to lose by trying.
It would almost be amusing that Gerecht and Takeyh refer to this as a “far more moral and practical foreign policy” if it weren’t so morally bankrupt and evil. The US has been inflicting collective punishment on more than eighty million Iranians in a vain bid to compel their government to capitulate on a wide range of issues. All Trump-era sanctions remain in place. The strangling of the Iranian people has not stopped. I don’t know if impoverishing and starving innocent people is a “political loser” in this country, but I do know that it is a malicious, cruel, and inhumane policy that decent people should abhor. As usual, Iran hawks propose the same mindless and destructive policy of causing massive harm to the Iranian people and then spout a lot of empty rhetoric about supporting the people and promoting human rights.
Iranian protesters have plenty of legitimate grievances against their own government, but no one should think that the US isn’t deeply mistrusted and resented because of the economic war that it has been waging on the people. The 2021 Iran Poll survey had a lot to tell us about Iranian public opinion on sanctions and the US The report on the survey stated:
Nearly half say the US sanctions have had a “great negative impact,” and over four in five say the sanctions have had a negative impact “on the lives of ordinary people.” These levels are almost unchanged from 2019.
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.
“The clerical regime views these protests as potential rebellions; we should, too.”
Once again the goals of the sanctions are for a total breakdown. So misery if the sanctions “work”.
Wonderful job Mr. Larison, but as usual too short of exposing anything.
Those two Israeli agents are a small part of a huge horde of a fifth column called the Israeli lobby, fake foreign policy experts & think-tanks, journalists, congressional staffers, MIC, phony human rights organizations, Israeli established churches and many other insidious establishments that control and run this country.
Why is so hard to name names, I mean state the actual groups, their actual loyalty, their nationalities, and their affiliations to a foreign nation for example. The word Hawk is vague and generic, it means someone who is a war monger, a hard liner, or a person preferring war over diplomacy just to name a few. However, the war they seek is not for US national security aims, but to prop Israeli regime’s plans to control the region using US tax payer’s money and American blood.
The Iran Hawks mentioned above are Israeli firsters “dual nationals”, and every war mongering person in USA establishment falls under the same category, so why no one dares to mention this fact? Just using the term Hawk makes no sense because the American people have been brainwashed for the past 40 years and lack the smarts or the critical thinking to conclude the facts. Just like Donald Trump who blamed all evil on the swamp, the deep government, but, he lacked the guts to spell the actual name of the group i.e. the Zionist movement, their lobbying think-tanks, and the Israeli regime.
The Iran Hawks are exclusively Israeli operatives tasked by the Israeli radical Likud party and their minions in USA congress, corporate media, government agencies to demonize Iran, to promote animosity, to spread false news, to manufacture consent to attack Iran, and yet, we never dare to mention these facts in plain English to the American people.
Outstanding. Thank you. A perfect description of the reality of our times. And an illustration of the how, a la Confucius, we are ardently commited NOT to call things by their true names.
BRAVO you hit the nail smack bang on its Head !!
The World’s most active Meddler, the USA , doing what she does best : MEDDLE in other Countries affairs…