The silent victims of the US embargo against Iran
thelancet.com
thelancet.com
Because of the sanctions, there's always constant emigration and drained my country of a lot of intelligent and hard working people. We are still suffering from that and the current democratically elected government can't easily find competent people to help rebuild the country...
Nah, that rarely works and is usually a very slow and painful process, often causing more suffering for the lower class than the crimes the sanctions are supposedly being imposed for.
This false and inflammatory, moreover, 'sanctions' are totally unrelated to 'assistance'.
Today, Iran can de-facto trade with most of the world either directly or through intermediaries. The purpose of any embargo is to weaken a state economically, not withhold specific medicines, obviously.
This is not true. Even opening a foreign bank account (necessary for trade) is impossible for Iranians companies, making trade extremely difficult for all companies.
European banks are legally permitted to trade with Iranian companies, but the threat of fines from the U.S bars all of them from doing so.
> The purpose of any embargo is to weaken a state economically, not withhold specific medicines, obviously.
In reality, one of the immediate effects of sanctions is scarcity of medicine.
Source: I lived there through the Obama-era sanctions.
You can see some figures for EU/Iran trade here [1]
[1] http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/count...
Iran also has trouble receiving payment for its oil. India, for example, used to have a deal in place (probably still does), that it would only pay Iran in Rupees. Your choice of cancer medicine is limited when you can only spend in Rupees, and so is your purchasing power.
And after all, this is just oil. It's sold by the government, and its proceeds are used for essential government functions, such as keeping the local currency afloat (which is now about 1/3 of its value compared to last year). Oil proceeds do not help the private sector in trade. An Iranian software company for example, does not export oil.
It's a token effort on the part of Europe to salvage the nuclear treaty that everyone agrees Iran is complying with. Even US intelligence publicly acknowledge it.
Amazed that NK can believe in any sort of deal after seeing what happened to Iran.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/world/europe/europe-trade...
The US provided arms to both sides of the Iraq-Iran war, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians. This is in addition to a host of other actions the US had taken that led to more death. If you find it inflammatory, imagine how you would feel if it was your family killed by these actions.
Consider amending your sentence to state: "Saddam Hussein was responsible for the death of 100's of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis".
Of course, the US was not fuelling both sides of the war with weapons as your comment implies, US equipment in Iran was there long before the Islamic revolution, after which, and ever since, Iran has declared that they want to destroy the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. If they want to take that posture against powerful nations, and at the same time get pretty close to building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to mount them - well - then they're picking a fight with entities much more powerful than them, which is why the sanctions were put in place to begin with.
Nobody wants to fight Iran, nobody wants sanctions. Really, everyone wants to make money if anything. The ball is effectively in their court.
Yes, it does. Not soley responsible, but that blood is still on US hands.
>Of course, the US was not fuelling both sides of the war with weapons as your comment implies, US equipment in Iran was there long before the Islamic revolution,
I assumed you had heard of the Iran-Contra affair. My comment implies the reality.
>Iran has declared that they want to destroy the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. If they want to take that posture against powerful nations, and at the same time get pretty close to building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to mount them - well - then they're picking a fight with entities much more powerful than them, which is why the sanctions were put in place to begin with
You act like they claim they wanted to destroy those nations for no reason. Decades of the US backed regime is what led to the Iranian revolution, which was just the tail end of Western powers looting Iran. A return to those conditions is what is still required of Iran to escape sanctions.
(as a side point the use of the term "sanction" in this way became annoyingly weird in the 1990s -- it's actually sanctioning a restriction on trade).
At the end all these policies are to steal resources, and have nothing to do with human rights.
That being said Iran's government needs to be pushed into the sea.
So much for equality, so much for freedom.
This is why it is so important to fight - and constantly fight - for free speech rights, and the right to form and hold an opinion which is precisely allowed because its not 'mainstream groupthink'.
A society which cannot criticise its military is ruled by it.
All members of the criminal (really, our wars are criminal) Coalition of Western Forces - its citizens as well as its 'service members' - must take responsibility for the violations of human rights that are happening, daily, in our name - and under our flag.
It is a terrible thing that ""Americans"" have absolutely no interest in seeing the results of their wars. It should be required viewing of all teenagers, so they know what their nation is doing for them.
That they have tuned themselves out - nearly completely - from actually understanding the people and the states they are bombing, illegally. In which states they are murdering civilian children, daily. For which allies we turn a blind eye while they commit, literally, genocide. Today.
And so on.
The fact that we don't communicate about these things - or are indeed prevented from doing so, is a huge tragedy.
We could be living in a much more peaceful world, if but for our criminal leadership.
>That being said Iran's government needs to be pushed into the sea.
I mean, if you can't speak a word of Farsi and don't know a thing about the Iranian people, or their culture - I'm personally of the opinion that this kind of attitude is just war-mongering.
Americans have never had to experience these sorts of policies
Add to that the effect of government bureaucracy trying to make there decisions future proof and voila.
https://www.isna.ir/news/97071810369/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%A...
I think this comment explains the issue well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19481707
They can buy medicines for their people instead of buying weapons. Surely buying medicine is more convenient. But the Islamic Republic's mafia is just thinking of itself.
What would the consequences be?
Unlike copyright, patents are country-specific. If you register a patent in the US, it is not valid in Argentina. If you register a patent in Russia, you cannot sue people for infringement in the US. There are of course trade agreements and other treaties that make it possible to register a patent in one country and have it recognized in multiple others. But for the most part, you have to register a patent in every country you wish to enforce it. Since in general, US does not allow US companies to do business with Iran, none of these patents are registered or recognized in Iran.
Iran is not even a signatory of international copyright treaties, let alone bilateral patent recognition treaties. In general, any IP produced outside of Iran is fair game in Iran and vice versa. The issue is not the laws, it is that the technology to make them is not available in Iran, and any attempt to purchase the technology is thwarted with the same sanctions regime.
Ive seen estimates around tens of billions of lost revenue from US biotech companies every year.
You mean when it has the potential to save millions of lives vs pay less in pharma CEO bonuses?
> Ive seen estimates around tens of billions of lost revenue from US biotech companies every year.
Cry me a river.
Yet because of their incredibly weak IP protections many drug companies are reluctant to sell there. Hundreds of medicines simply aren't available despite being released a decade earlier and Indians in need have to pay European prices for access to modern pharmaceuticals. It's entirely destroyed any chance for local r&d too.
It's not a net benefit.
I'm all for sticking it to the Man and especially criticising big pharma but suggest reconsidering your viewpoint here.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/09/09/indian...
Suppose Iran passed a law invalidating all patents of drugs it cannot buy on the market at market prices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
Spare us with the propaganda. The world has caught up and can see through it.
The second link is not relevant, the international community is confident Iran is sticking to the agreement, so pointing to a non-existent issue as some kind of a gotcha, especially as the biggest complainer about this in the region themselves have undeclared stockpiles, is not really relevant.
Also, immoral/unjustified != illegal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/03/international-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/05/us-rejects-international-cou...
Having said that, I do NOT condone sanctions in any form.
As a condition of easing sanctions, Iran filled the rector core of it's active nuclear reactor with concrete and was found to be in compliance with all the terms of the agreement. Good luck getting any other nation to enter into negotiations like that with the US in good faith again.
The Iranian regime is awful. They're appalling extremists and oppressive tyrants. No argument there, but that's on them. It doesn't justify recklessly violating treaties and unilaterally breaking agreements, and establishing a track record of doing so. If anything, demonstrating a track record of honesty and respect for straight dealing is even more important when dealing with such people.
And while the treatment of Cuba is indeed appalling, or at least incongruous in relation to, say, Saudi Arabia, there are rather meaningful differences between the parties.
Thawing relations with Cuba was among Obama's signature achievements. This included the reopening of Embassies, allowing travel, and vastly increasing legal avenues for trade and investment.
Some (but not all) of this has been delayed or cut back under the current administration. At the same time, Saudi Arabia enjoys unprecedented support and access at a time where they are more hostile in Yemen, Qatar, and The Streisand Lobby at the Istanbul Consulate.
Europe was the only party that ever had /any/ power. The US did not have much of an economic relationship with Iran to begin with. Therefore, their sanctions were mostly symbolic. It was EU sanctions that eventually forced Iran to the negotiating table and made the nuclear deal possible. As the article shows, the US has the power to be cruel. But the price being paid is humanitarian, not economic.
Accordingly, in succeeds only in killing children, not creating pressure. This is best shown by Iran's decision to stay in the JCPOA. The US is being ignored, because it is comparably irrelevant in purely economic terms.
The EU has also passed legislation prohibiting EU companies from implement US sanctions and indemnifying them against US fines: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45085205. And there's an EU venture to replace US institutions in Iran-bound financial transactions: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2019...
Does something in all this need to give? Yes, definitely. Presumably, the US will shy away from trying to enforce. If not, US courts are actually somewhat likely to uphold long-standing precedents in international law, because the only other possible outcome is a completely unworkable quagmire going forward where no company could simultaneously operate in the EU and the US.
The only meaningful thing for the EU to do would be to retaliate by sanctioning US companies and freezing US assets to compensate for the effect of the US sanctions. Which would mean full scale economic war and sanctions on the US, something the EU of course cannot afford.
If I recall, the US had to do something like that back in 1776, and Germany had to have some assistance in it back in 1939-41.
Growing pains.
Modernization can happen, but only if it's not visibly pro US.
On the contrary:
In August 2013, sixty years afterward, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government".
Very similar to what happened with Vietnam and the Diem regimen.
No, it (and the British who actually started trying to pull off a coup first) paid people and deployed propaganda from multiple different angles, and including false flag operations, to energize multiple, mutually antagonistic factions in order to destabilize the Mossadegh regime; a lot of the anti-Mossadegh opposition was organized crime groups paid by the CIA to put up a front as political opposition. They didn't care about the politics; they did care about the money.
Heck, even the Shah—the monarch who superficially seized total power in the coup—was opposed until the CIA threatened to depose him as well if he didn't go along.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/2018-10-10/eu...
These moves have mostly been symbolic. Trade with all large European companies, from Total to Peugeot has been ceased. Also, no European bank has been willing to trade with Iran under the threat of U.S fines.
> And there's an EU venture to replace US institutions in Iran-bound financial transactions
Good gesture, but also symbolic. In practice, the new mechanism is mostly a gesture towards U.S for its unilateral sanctions, than a vehicle to enable trade with Iran.
Edit: typo
In the end big evil bullys always get there way.