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Comment by emilsedgh | Hacker News Reader

Github situation aside, as an Iranian (living in the US) I would like to use the opportunity to raise some awareness regarding Iranian sanctions by the US government.

The US sanctions are part of a "maximum pressure" campaign on the Iranian government. The US government has banned the rest of the world from dealing with Iran. Therefore, Iran has no exports anymore.

As a result, Iran's currency lost it's value ~10 times in the past decade (When the original sanctions where started by the Obama administration).

The goal of the sanctions are to make people of Iran so miserable that they would go in streets and start a revolution. Now, Iranian people hate the Islamic Republic and would get rid of them if they could. But the Islamic Republic has no limits. They would shoot and kill and many as it takes.

Another challenge for Iranian people and a revolution, except for Islamic regime's cruelty is an unknown future. Iran shares a lot of border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran also has many terrorist groups activated inside it already. That means there are real fears of Isis/Taliban/Other groups rushing to Iran if the central government is weakened.

So people are scared of Islamic Republic, and also scare of what can come next.

Therefore, basically, Maximum Pressure campaign's goal is to make people so miserable, they'd rather face bullets/wars.

This has lead to some really devastating results. Middle class doesn't exist anymore. Some rural cities are reporting that people cannot pay for bread anymore. Most people cannot pay for chicken/meat anymore. Add Covid 19 to this, and a very incompetent and cruel government which has been rendered completely useless by the sanctions, and you get a complete disaster on your hand.

The government is also quite scared, and to make sure there wont be uprisings, is spreading fear. They execute people and hand cruel sentences to everyone. Last weeks they gave a 10 years sentence to an 18 years makeup artist who had a famous Instagram account. Journalists are executed, etc. People's morale are completely shattered.

So the bottom line is, the maximum pressure campaign has rendered Iranian people completely miserable. Even if it were to succeed wit topping Islamic Republic, there is no guarantee that it wont make Iran another Syria situation. Please, as a U.S. voter, I urge you to consider your support for stopping the sanctions.

View on HN

The sanctions are meant to put pressure on Iran to stop development of nuclear weapons. A regime change is not a likely consequence of sanctions, it's much more likely that the Iranian government looks at the economic toll of it's choice to pursue nuclear weapons development and decides to change course. Without a doubt these sanctions cause much misery - the bulk of it inflicted on everyday people who are not decision makers in the country. But allowing a country that regularly threatens to wipe other countries off the map to develop nuclear weapons stands to create orders of magnitude more misery than economic sanctions.

I personally full supported Obama's sanctions on Iran. They had a purpose (Stop Iran's nuclear program) that made sense and was achievable.

And they achieved it. All European countries and united nations and Obama administration confirmed that Iran was committed to the nuclear deal.Even current and former Israel generals wrote letters to show support for Obama's deal with Iran which stopped Iranian nuclear program.

What the current administration wants is much much more than nuclear concerns [0]. They are basically telling the Islamic Republic to shoot itself in the head. Or face sanctions.

Of course they pick sanctions.

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/21/mike-pompeo-speech-...

Can you elaborate on how this amounts to telling Iran to "shoot itself in the head"? The 12 demands as per your article are:

> Declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear programme and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.

> Stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor.

> Provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.

> End its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.

> Release all US citizens as well as citizens of US partners and allies.

> End support to Middle East “terrorist” groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

> Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilisation and reintegration of Shia militias.

> End its military support for the Houthi rebels and work towards a peaceful, political settlement in Yemen.

> Withdraw all forces under Iran’s command throughout the entirety of Syria.

> End support for the Taliban and other “terrorists” in Afghanistan and the region and cease harbouring senior al-Qaeda leaders.

> End the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps-linked Quds Force’s support for “terrorists” and “militant” partners around the world.

> End its threatening behaviour against its neighbours, many of whom are US allies, including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.

This really amounts to 3 things:

1. Stop pursuing nuclear weapons development, and actually give inspectors the ability to verify that Iran is staying true to it's word.

2. Stop supporting terrorist organizations, and other proxy wars.

3. Stop threatening to destroy Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other countries.

Sure, demanding the release of US citizens is superfluous and unnecessary. But how does this amount to telling Iran to "shoot itself in the head"? How would fulfilling these 12 points kill Iran? How does Iran somehow end up dying if it stops fighting proxy wars in Yemen and Iraq?

How do you stop sanctions if you already follow the demands put in front of you? The reason the world isn't on the US side against Iran wholly as it were in the beginning of the sanctions is that Iran did live up to the demands.... and then the demands were changed. The US broke the deal, not the Iranians.

You stop the sanctions by meeting the new demands. The US decided the original deal did not offer inspectors enough leeway to ensure Iran was actually halting nuclear weapons development, and so it added more stringent inspection requirements. Adopting or walking away from a deal is a mutual decision. Yes, the US decided to put new terms on the deal. Iran could have accepted adding real enforcement mechanisms to the deal and ended the sanctions, but decided otherwise.

This thread is being rate limited. The commenter below is incorrect. The post deal demands included restrictions on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, too, but they also included changes to increase the access of inspectors. This was a substantial part of why the original deal was rejected, the new administration believed the original restricted inspectors to the extent that Iran could still develop nuclear weapons in secrecy.

The existing deal already has enforcement mechanisms under Article 37. If Iran violates the deal, the UNSC sanctions are reinstated by the P5+1. If the P5+1 violate the deal, Iran scales back its own commitments. All of this is in the existing treaty.

And there is no guarantee that meeting the new demands would result in sanctions stopping, rather than in more sanctions and demands.

United States' post-deal demands were not nuclear. They were regarding Iran's missile program.

The sanctions are not to prevent nuclear development, the Israelis are not stupid and they know Iran can develop it sanctions or not, it will be dealt with a cold war strategies as it always was.

The sanctions are to weaken its non nuclear aspirations, their push to create an Iranian crescent from Iran to Lebanon making many people life miserable on the way, people who don't want them in the region.

It's a country that clearly state their will to destroy Israel and their militias in Lebanon actively attacked Israel even though there is no border conflict there right now and the two countries could set up a peace agreement easily. But it is not only the Israelis that don't want them there, the majority Sunni and Christians in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq also not happy with the Iranian push, hence the joy everybody had when Trump killed Sulemeini.

Obama was an idiot who bought into the meme of "preventing nuclear", he didn't understand the middle east at all and during his time the middle east was in flames with millions of deaths and refugees. He didn't support the demonstrations in Iran when they happened, just stood there looking like a the lame useless president that he was with his useless speeches.

Trump brought quiet and peace and he did it with almost no cost of life, just by having a knack to dealing with crazy leaders of the region which is more aligned with his natural craziness and line of thinking, and with a bit of Kushner brilliance behind the scenes.

I just hope Biden is not as stupid as Obama and will keep the pressure on Iran, got a feeling he is a bit more experienced and realist so I am hopeful he will understand what's going on.

The problem is the cost of the deal is too high and the benefit too low.

The Iran deal is actually rather simple in concept. Iran temporarily suspends certain nuclear activities (not all of them - for example, researching enrichment is fine). In return, Iran gets an economic boost and a permit to do whatever it wants, like supporting terrorists or mass murdering Syrians or trying to destroy Israel.

The latter part may surprise you, but it's obvious when one thinks about it. What is the West allowed to do when Iran commits those things? It's not economic sanctions, since removing sanctions and then placing them on again for different reasons would leave Iran no reason to comply with the nuclear deal. And of course, war is undesireable (the entire point of the deal was to avoid war). So Iran can do whatever, and if the West does anything serious, well, nukes.

The rest of the ME isn't going to meekly submit to Iran. Worse, Iran can't finance its holdings (Iran requires weak governments in order to hold Iraq and Lebanon, but that means no investments). That means things get done in the ME way, which already leads to mass amounts of refugees.

Iran's involvement in Syria directly led to Brexit (Leave would have lost without an immigration crisis on) and played a key role in Trump getting elected (Is it a surprise the most anti-immigration R candidate won the primary given that background? Didn't Trump end up hiring Cambridge Analytica, which would have never happened absent Brexit?). If it weren't for the deal, maybe the US would have done something about Syria and we'd have avoided all that. If Iranian destablization of ME restarts under Biden, the result may well be Trump mk2.

I do not believe this is an acceptable price for temporary restrictions.

> Iran's involvement in Syria directly led to Brexit

It's appalling how you (even partially(?)) blame Iran for Brexit. The US decided to support Syrian rebels (of whom mostly turned out to become or move to ISIS). Syria is a secular state, whether you like to believe this or not. The Russians and Iranians were legitimately asked by its officials to help support the Syrian army to tackle the terrorists. Yet, the US and its allies financed/armed so called rebels that made a disaster of the country. Remember McCain's visits and photographs back in 2011? Why is the US even STILL there?! I can not think of a single country in the ME that turned out to become better after the US started meddling in its elections/government - ironically, including the one which you are currently blaming.

Blame the incompetence of Brexit on the people who advocated for it and who like to ignore/dismiss facts.

Assad runs a mass-scale torture state. Iran supported Assad from the beginning, without it he wouldn't have survived to 2015. The result of Assad's butchery is a mass displacement of Syrians, ergo refugee crisis, ergo Leave victory in Brexit referendum.

If the US was ever serious about not letting Assad and Iran get away with it all that wouldn't have happened, and there wouldn't have been Brexit. The US's decision to not get involved against Assad (they're there for ISIS I remind you) had a far worse result in human lives and geopolitical impact than any of the US's 'meddling'.

> The US's decision to not get involved against Assad (they're there for ISIS I remind you)

So is Iran? Mind you: the weapons these rebels aka ISIS had were mostly/directly provided by the US and its allies! No official from Syria asked the US to be there! Imagine if Iran would deploy troops tomorrow in Washington to endorse groups to tackle the existing government. The real danger is supporting regimes that endorse Salafist/Wahabist Islam, which the West likes to do. This hypocrisy of the West is fascinating. I think that could have somehow played a role in Brexit...

Iran supported Assad since before ISIS existed. In fact their operations were almost all directed against the rebels but never against ISIS.

Iran supports Assad for a link with Lebanon and threatening Israel, and if a lot of Sunnis are forced by Assad to migrate, well, that's more like a bonus for them, since it destablizes the West.

The goal of US foreign policy is world domination. The sanctions on Iran may well contribute to that goal. However, from the point of view of what's good for mankind generally I'm not sure it wouldn't be a good thing for Iran to have nuclear weapons. It would discourage other countries from attacking Iran and it would also give other countries an incentive not to destabilise Iran. There would, of course, be some obvious disadvantages - so it's not an easy (hypothetical) decision - but Iran would probably be a safer and better custodian of nuclear weapons than at least one other country that already has them so I certainly don't think it would be a terribly bad thing for Iran to join the club.

>The goal of US foreign policy is world domination.

US is a global superpower and they are the creators of the modern global order of free trade and democracy (it isn't a coincidence that there has been meteoric rise in the number of democracies since WW2, and end of Cold War). If that's 'world domination' then OK. But to be clear, if it wasn't them, another global superpower would fill the vacuum. In the 20th century, that would have been the Soviets. In the 21st, it may be China. Is that better?

The goal of US foreign policy is defense in depth via diplomacy and alliances, which hasn't significantly changed in the past 100 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth

When has that worked? The same countries have been sanctioned over and over without successfully alleviating tense relations.

Why would a government who doesn't care about its population look at the suffering of those people and change course? Are we naive enough to believe that the Iranian elite aren't circumventing these sanctions personally?

Finally, why? Like, after hundreds of years of imperialism and political interference, I've yet to hear a compelling case to continue doing these things given they've done nothing but push us further away from each other and closer to a climate-crisis, dystopian nightmare.

We need cooperation not blackmail.

South Africa, among others, have had large changes in direction prompted through sanctions. Cuba has also gradually allowed more economic freedom over the past decade.

I agree, cooperation is what is needed not blackmail. That's what the sanctions are doing: if Iran wants to cooperate economically with other countries, it needs to stop trying to blackmail other countries with threats of nuclear strikes.

As far as why, Iran regularly threatens to wipe other Middle Eastern countries off the map - including the nuclear armed Israel, which would easily trigger a nuclear war in the middle east. The simple reality is that there is not an equivalency between the possession of nuclear weapons by China, Russia, NATO, versus North Korea and Iran. The former don't go around threatening to wipe other countries off the map on a regular basis. Nor does Israel, they don't even officially acknowledge nuclear capacities. The latter do, and in North Korea's case it has created one of the most infamous geopolitical catastrophes of the 20th century. And Iran stands to become a much larger North Korea in a much more volatile part of the world.

Israel does go around bombing things in other countries.

A couple strikes per month [1] in response to Syrian missile batteries shooting down Israeli planes is not particularly comparable with threatening to wipe a country off the map. Most of these aren't even direct attacks, Iranians are killed in the crossfire because they're supporting proxy fighters in Syria.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_conflict_d...

You cannot seriously not add attacks on Palestinians. It would be a country too if it weren't occupied and crushed completely. More and more acknowledge this every year.

Then there's all the hits on people by Mossad.

As do China, Russia, and NATO. Why single out Israel?

America does not pay for China and Russia's bombs, at the very least; but something tells me you already knew that.

America bombed the crap out of many countries throughout history. I mean wtf was Vietnam all about? Iraq didn't look that good either.

Cool, yeah, more bad stuff. Doesn't cancel out what I was talking about at all - this is just a standard "whataboutism". I'd like to see an end to all bombing everywhere. It's easier as a Canadian to hold this perspective, of course; I don't have to condone or defend the past evils of America at all.

Whataboutism has its merit in this instance. If the U.S wants to show its moral superioriry it needs to actually try becoming morally superior. Which I am not sure it is. Otherwise it reeks of hypocrisy and people rightly suspects most Americans do not care about China's morals at all but about losing their hegemony to China. So its easy to become a cynic when seeing these debates.

So the issue is not the people suffering, but rather who's paying. Got it.

There was a deal, it was working, and the US (well, Trump) unilaterally broke out of it (as usual). Your lame excuses really are disgusting.

This is misleading at best.

Every country that has the ability to enrich uranium is 99% of the way there towards developing nuclear weapons.

Iran feels threatened. Countries that have felt threatened (North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel) have developed nuclear weapons.

The sanctions are there as a deterrent to Iran having a Nuclear weapons program.

Anyone who thinks it is possible for a country to have Nuclear power but not nuclear weapons is a fool.

Honest question, if the sanctions are causing misery and the people basically have to choose between death and poverty, will it not just cause more resentment? Wouldn't the people eventually become so angry at the Western World that they support Nuclear proliferation for, at best, defense/power and, at worst, revenge?

I personally full supported Obama's sanctions on Iran. They had a purpose (Stop Iran's nuclear program) that made sense and was achievable.

What the current administration wants is much much more than that [0]. They are basically telling the Islamic Republic to shoot itself in the head. Or face sanctions.

Of course they pick sanctions.

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/21/mike-pompeo-speech-...

In 1963 JFK told Ben-Gurion that Israel developing nuclear weapons would lead to other countries in the region also pursuing nuclear weapons. Israel did it anyway, JFK's prediction obviously came true, and now America is saddled with Israel's problems; trying to stop Iran from doing what Israel did, because Israel did it. The sanctions are decades late and aimed at the wrong country.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kennedy-letter-to-ben-g...

I think it was Einstein, Openheimer and others who told the U.S that there will be a nuclear arms race, way WAY before Israel acquired nukes. Let's keep up the blame game though.

> Countries that have felt threatened ([...] Israel) have developed nuclear weapons.

What evidence is there for this? At the time, Israel claimed that Egypt was trying to develop a nuclear bomb. However in his 1963 letter to Ben-Gurion, JFK says that American intelligence agencies had found no evidence of this and believed Egypt did not have facilities capable of it (unlike Israel.) To ny knowledge, in the decades since then, evidence of the alleged Egyptian bomb program has never surfaced.

> "I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it."

-JFK, 1963

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kennedy-letter-to-ben-g...

? Israel was invaded and nearly overrun several times, by many of it's neighbours, with a combined population 30x it's own.

It's neighbours continued to make public proclamations that they wanted to 'wipe it out'.

If that is not 'threatening' then what is?

Iran, in contrast, faces no real existential threat. Not Russia, Turkey. Saudis couldn't really if they wanted to. Iraq is weak and they control most of it.

Israel was the first country in the middle east to acquire nuclear weapons. The UAR did not have nuclear weapons and wasn't developing them (despite Israel's unsubstantiated claims to the contrary), nor did Israel need nuclear weapons to defend itself (Ben-Gurion admitted that in 1963 to JFK.) And even if they weren't capable of defending themselves with conventional arms, the JFK administration offered to ensure the protection of Israel in exchange for inspections of Dimona to stop Israel's bomb program. Israel turned this offer down, and refused inspections of Dimona.

Israel did not need an atomic bomb. In developing nuclear weapons (in cooperation with the white supremacist state of South Africa, it should be noted) Israel ensured that other middle east countries would eventually seek them. They deliberately threw water onto an oil fire.

'David Ben-Gurion: Message to US President Kennedy Regarding UAR Threats' (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ben-gurion-message-to-u...)

> 2. Israel is not helpless: in a test of strength it can defeat all three but it is not eager for such a victory.

> 3. Israel finds it difficult to believe that the United States and the civilized world would acquiesce in such an attempt at "liberation".

In other words, Ben-Gurion admitted Israel could protect itself alone if needed, but doubted it would even need to.

Israel is a small country without allies (it didn't then) which was invaded a few times by much bigger nations around it, some of whom, to this day, want to destroy it.

Of all non-superpower nations, Israel's quest for Nukes is probably the most rational.

They have zero will or capability to wage any material war of conquest (beyond East Bank/Golan), there is zero chance that they could feasibly use those weapons to 'invade' Jordan, Syria, Saudi etc.. They couldn't hope to occupy any such territory. Ergo - they can only materially be used for defence. Besides - anything else and the entire world (including the US) would turn on them.

Israel's nukes has not caused others to seek nukes really - that's far flung. Iran is not threatened in any way by Israel.

Ironically - the opposite is true: Iran's nukes will destabilize the entire region and cause major problems. Saudi has access to nuke tech from Pakistan, and if Iran ever for a moment brandishes such a weapon, they will magically appear in Saudi very quickly.

Other players are likely to be able to overcome the geopolitical pressure to avoid them, but the fact is 'they would want to have them'.

Nobody is afraid of Israel, but almost everyone around Iran is afraid of Iran.

The 'conflict' in the ME is no longer Israel vs. Egypt an everyone else, now, it's Iran vs. Saudi and everyone else.

> Israel is a small country without allies (it didn't then)

This just isn't true, America was offering to ensure their safety and Israel believed that if they were attacked, America and other first world countries would come to their defense. They acquired nuclear weapons anyway. This is all spelled out in the correspondence you can read here: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/john-f-kennedy-administ...

What's more, those documents reveal the Israeli government was exaggerating the military competence and ability of the UAR in PR campaigns directed at the Israeli and American publics.

Many countries have nuclear power plants without having weapons program, Turkey, South Africa, Japan, Many Eastern-Bloc countries.

correction/clarification: Apartheid South Africa not only had a nuclear weapons program (in cooperation with Israel) - they had nuclear weapons.

South Africa hastily dismantled its nuclear weapons program ahead of majority rule - becoming the only country to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons. Though it still stocks the weapons-grade nuclear material in storage.

Canada has nuclear power, but I'm pretty sure Canada doesn't have nuclear weapons.

Canada is a part of NATO, and NATO militaries have strategies for the sharing of nuclear weapons. In the past nuclear weapons were stored in Canada.

Developing a nuclear bomb isn't the same as developing an actually useful nuclear weapon: you still have to develop a rocket to deliver it somewhere else than your test site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitcase_nuclear_device

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48

and in today's news: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13657927/iran-warns-us-trigger...

The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not use rockets or missiles. I think a bomber aircraft would work just fine.

Iran is not threatened, there is nobody that could invade them except the United States, and that would be unthinkable.

Iran wants nuclear weapons to swing a heavier stick and threaten it's neighbours.

As an Iranian living in Iran, I think you must educate yourself and do actual researches to find causes of things that happened between Iran and the U.S.

Sanctions to produce "maximum pressure" as you said is still against human rights but oh well guess how UN thinks about that. Putting citizens in misery is not how you treat a government, specially an Iranian one. You are just going against basic human rights, like not being able to import medicines or basic needs of people.

The only miserable person here is you, someone who claims to be Iranian and yet thinks giving access to private repositories on a platform is against his beliefs, let alone the way you talk about Iranian people also makes you disrespectful human being.

Your hatred against the government has nothing to do with Iranian people, so please, think twice before you post anything on the internet again, if you can't handle a simple thing like this, aka human rights, then you must have issues on giving opinions on other topics as well.

Off-topic: seems like you're one of those iranis who escaped the country for whatever the situation you were in and now you've got the tongue to speak out, so you start attacking on normal citizens because YOU think that YOU are better than them, there's just too many of you, you're not the only one.

Nice to hear from a Real Iranian instead of an American pretending.

Do you think that every Iranian has the same political position? Emigrées tend to be self-selected towards being critical of the(ir) circumstances in the home-country, and even if they were not critical originally, experiencing a different way of life has a way of questioning if your previous experiences were the best approach. Even Americans who have lived abroad exhibit this.

I see no reason to believe that US sanctions on Iran are intended to cause a revolt by the Iranian people. AFAIK, the US has imposed sanctions on numerous countries since WWII and not in a single instance has it lead to a revolution in America's favour.

Another possibility is that the US simply wants to isolate its geopolitical enemies and impoverish them. As it has been doing with Cuba since Batista was overthrown.

I'm not convinced US foreign policy were rational, but a possible rational explanation for US sanctions is to make an example of countries that refuse US dominance. Similar to how a gang running a protection racket punishes those who refuse to pay protection money.

Regardless of why US foreign policy has deemed it necessary to starve the Iranian people, it will not lead to a revolution in America's favour. The Shah is not coming back. It will just lead to more death of Iranians.

Are US sanctions on Cuba really intended to impoverish Cuba? I would think not, because Canada, the EU and other developed countries continue to trade with Cuba (and send holidaymakers there) and it has been decades since the US tried to put any real pressure on its allies to isolate Cuba.

Rather, I would suspect that the real aim of America’s Cuba policy is to appeal to the Cuban-exile demographic, which has a powerful lobby and can deliver votes to politicians in favor of the status quo.

I know I'm out of my league here, but it seems to me like a good thing that we sanction countries would would hand out a 10+ year jail sentence to a instagrammer for showcasing their hobby?

1. The regime wouldn't be this inclined to go after it's own people have they not been under this much pressure.

2. The people "really" punished are the same normal people. They are punished once by US economically and once punished by the regime morally/politically.

You should get off your high horse and do some light reading about things like "Three strikes and you're out" and "The new Jim crow". The US is absolutely not any better. 2+ million people in jail for profit.

Let Iran sanction the US then.

"the US has imposed sanctions on numerous countries since WWII and not in a single instance has it lead to a revolution in America's favour."

? US sanctions against Iran actually did lead to a 'win' for the US in the first round.

It's the expansion of those sanctions that has caused problems.

Sanctions on Russia have definitely had an effect [1]. It's hard to say exactly, only Putin knows, it's not like he'd admit it, but there's no doubt it affects his calculus.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during...

> Please, as a U.S. voter, I urge you to consider your support for stopping the sanctions.

How can a US voter actually affect change? What options are available for us to vote for?

This should be higher up.

Here's my cynical take: the most effective way to lift the sanctions would be lobbying from US corporations. Lifting sanctions is probably profitable for every US business with a market in Iran, so if you work at a US corporation, lobby your boss!

You can write a letter to your representative!

These suggestions are age-old tactics [0] used to placate the population and prevent actual, material change.

[0]: https://twitter.com/StuffFromSam/status/1344313566254477313?...

I'm not sure how much is by law and how much is by executive order, but I believe that when Biden gets in, he could make some changes unilaterally.

So, essentially this would be about advocating for change by the Biden administration. It wouldn't be by voting (since the election is already done), but writing to your representative could help. Maybe there are advocacy groups that could use support?

Advocating for changes is more likely to be effective with an administration that isn't fundamentally opposed to them.

> but I believe that when Biden gets in, he could make some changes unilaterally.

What makes you think he will do any of that besides a belief?

I wasn't saying he will do it. I was saying he could.

It seems the the US law was originally the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act [1] and there have been various laws extending it. Apparently they allow the President to waive sanctions on a case-by-case bases.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_Libya_Sanctions_Act

Maybe give your government a taste of their own medicine: go to the streets and overthrow your evil, corrupt politicians.

Can't wait to find some non-evil, non-corrupt politicians. Is there a Yelp for finding those?

Why not yourself?

Overthrow them and replace them with who? Who should be the leaders of the United States? I am open to ideas for who to vote for, and I think a lot of people are. That's why someone as obviously ill-suited for the job as Trump did win -- people are so desperate for something different but don't really know what they're looking for.

> replace them with who

Someone who aligns with your views - like yourself.

There's 300 million plus people in the United States. Sure, we could overthrow the government, but you can't just go "my way or the highway" with policies; you'll never get support doing that. As spoonjim said, Trump wasn't elected for no reason; He was elected because 62 million plus people voted for him. And with this past election, that number went up to 74 million. And the opposition (Biden/Harris) got 81 million. For comparison, George Washington's support was almost unanimous. Sure, it's not exactly the same, but Washington had the support he did because everyone believed in a common "enemy", the British Empire. Today, depending on who you ask, the enemy is either "the Demonrats" or "the Trumpanzees".[a]

Not to mention that the United States itself wasn't formed overnight; it was the product of many compromises. There's even a whole Broadway play about it: Hamilton[b].

[a]: Yes, these are actual "names" I've read online.

[b]: Sure, it's exaggerated, but it's pretty accurate

>the enemy is either "the Demonrats" or "the Trumpanzees".

You forgot Muslims, Mexicans, poor people and the non-white people of the US. They are just as much an enemy as the opposing political party (and the Russians and the Chinese....)

I definitely shouldn't be a leader of the United States, trust me on that. So, given that, to whom should I give my vote and other power I may hold?

> Please, as a U.S. voter, I urge you to consider your support for stopping the sanctions.

The US currently has a largely non-functioning government. Voting enacts little, if any, change. The two-party system currently in place has such ingrained lockstep change won't happen because everyone is worried about not getting re-elected or seeing diversity of opinion.

You're replying to a post describing the terrible effects of US sanctions on Iran. Imagine if you were living under those conditions, and person from the country enforcing the sanctions responded that there's nothing they can do because their two party democracy makes it too hard to change anything?

This is not the right place to complain about political gridlock in the US.

Why? If a person from Iran comments and says, I don't actually want to destroy the US but I can't really change it because XYZ.

Granted the post is a bit thin and doesn't go beyond the surface level of the issue, but its is relevant information for an outsider.

Given this is the US we are talking about most people probably know about the two party system and so on, but foreign relations is a special case even within that. My responds provides some more context to the problem pointed out.

Of course it's horrendous and completely disheartening but it does not make it not true, and I think it's important to inform that the answer is not 'voting'. Voting does nothing with a non-functioning government.

Unfortunately both parties on this are horribly bad. The Democrats just as bad as the Republicans. In their seal to not seem weak against the Republicans they have accepted the basic premises this foreign policy was developed.

Unlike Saudi, Qatar, Israel, UAE and others Iran has no lobby in the US. Because there is are no commercial ties, US buissness don't have existing relationships with Iran anymore.

While US companies like Boeing certainty would like to establish such commercial relation with Iran. Their far bigger intensive is to continue to support the Saudi/Israel vs Iran conflict and to sell massive amounts of weapons both to the US government and the governments of Saudi/Israel and allies.

Since there are no large factor to push the US a different direction the status quo has basically been established in the post 1979 world and things only changed minimally.

There is not genuine democratic support for these changes, mostly because most people simply have no idea of middle east politics and don't know the difference between Iran and Iraq or anything like that.

There is a broad based anti-war movement from both the left and the right, but it has very little politician influence outside of the presidential elections. In the presidential elections generally the more anti-war presidents wins, but usually once in office, everybody around is not of that opinion. In congress election foreign policy is usually not important enough of a factor.

Just considering that it was most Saudi bombers at the WW2 and the waste majority of issues and terror bombings have been by Sunnis has not changed the US political output in the least. Despite Iran actually reaching out to the US post-911 (threw the Swiss Embassy) putting a lot of issues up for debate but Bush categorically refused to even consider any engagement.

Its really hard to see what strategically could change so this policy direction could change anytime soon.

Iran does not need to develop nuclear weapons, nor fund regional militant and terrorist groups .. but they do. I wish the Iranian government would choose to be a good citizen of the region and the world, for the sake of their people.

Ever since the revolution they took a purposefully antagonistic stance towards the US for their own ideological reasons. The sad reality (for Iran) is that the present global order has been created and maintained by US - so if you can't get along with US, you are going to be a pariah. Many non-democratic nations can get along with US just fine - why can't Iran?

Yes, why won't Iran simply disarm under US pressure, like Gaddafi and Saddam did?

How well is Iran's current strategy of being a regional and global pariah working out?

Without excusing the actions of US, could you honestly say that the present circumstances Iran finds themselves in is not a result of their decisions and choices since the revolution? And like I said, it isn't even about regime change. US is friendly with plenty of non-democratic regimes, even ones they were at war with (like Vietnam). On the other side, nations that set an explicit policy of antagonism, like Cuba, North Korea and Iran, tend to not fare well. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Iran's, and North Korea's, strategies are working out pretty well for the people making those decisions. Khamenei, like Kim Jong-Il, looks set to die of natural causes at an advanced age.

The people of Iran and North Korea are not doing so well. But if you were an Iranian citizen hoping for a better future, would you really pin your hopes on a US-backed regime change, after seeing the aftermath of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria?

>Iran's, and North Korea's, strategies are working out pretty well for the people making those decisions...The people of Iran and North Korea are not doing so well.

So your contention is that nation-states shouldn't interact with each other at the nation-state level? That is, if a nation-state proceeds with antagonistic policies, like funding regional militant and terrorist groups against your allies, you cannot hold that nation-state to account lest it hurt their populations? This is not an easy ethical question. At the nation-state level there is no rule of law, it is anarchy. It seems like there may be 'international law' in the modern world, but that's only for those that live within the sphere of influence of the relevant superpower who can enforce it (USA plays that role in much of the globe, soon to be replaced wholly or in part by Chinese influence).

Policies like sanctions have many goals. In the specific case of Iran, sanctions have a goal of curbing Iranian regional antagonism and not necessarily regime change (we're much too cynical for that).

>But if you were an Iranian citizen hoping for a better future, would you really pin your hopes on a US-backed regime change

There is no easy answer. Ultimately, it is the Iranian government that is responsible for the well-being of their citizens. Their citizens could have their lives drastically improved TODAY if their governments chose to do so. I don't know why you put that responsibility on the US because US cannot do this job. US needs to balance the well-being of their people as well as the well-being of the people of their regional allies as well, in addition to basic rights of all humans.

I posed a question to you in my previous message and you refused to answer it. But I'll rephrase: Why do you bend over backwards to remove all agency from Iranian government for actions they chose to get themselves and the people they are responsible for, into the present situation. This includes their absolute refusal for making decisions that would get them to stop being a regional and global pariah.

I don't really understand what you're referring to when you say that Iran has a choice to improve their people's lives today. The Iranian leadership talked to the USA and worked out a deal. The USA then went back on that deal, reimposed sanctions without even trying to renegotiate, and basically declared war on Iran, assassinating a top Iranian general. What choice do you think that Iran has right now? Their choices are surrender to US aggression, or continue to resist. I've mentioned a few of the many recent regional episodes - Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Kurds - which make it completely obvious that appeasement of the US will not end well for the Iranian government or its people. They are making the only rational choice at this juncture. Since they have no alternative they are blameless at this juncture. Since the USA does have choices - to go back to the deal, or to try to renegotiate a new deal with whatever demands they might add - the USA is therefore to blame for current Iranian suffering.

> Please, as a U.S. voter, I urge you to consider your support for stopping the sanctions.

What does this mean? Who should I vote for?

A good start might be to contact your representatives, see what their thoughts on Iran are, and make your case. If they aren't interested, check out the opposition.

Other than that, I'm not sure.

OP is referring to voting in general, not in particular, as you're asking.

And unless you're in Georgia this obviously has no bearing on current candidates.

In general, the GOP, especially under Trump, have pursued the policy of sanctions against Iran at all costs. The Democrats have not.

So the answer to your question is pretty obvious, don't you think?

The Democrats have placed economic sanctions against Iran every day the party has been in power for the last forty years.

(so have the Republicans)

> Now, Iranian people hate the Islamic Republic and would get rid of them if they could. But the Islamic Republic has no limits. They would shoot and kill and many as it takes.

That's the problem with dictatorships. The only way to purchase a democracy again is with a lot of blood. Hopefully you had some sort of 2A rights (probably not since they are first to go under dictatorship) or else you'll be relying a lot on foreign provided weapons to break free in the future. Good luck, bad governments almost never "natually" become better over time. Power will continue to be consolidated.

Basically your whole comment amounts to "yes our government is evil, but we can't do anything to change it without people dying, and we aren't willing to do that so... just remove all the sanctions because people are suffering and it's better to have an evil government prosper than to prevent it from prospering by making its citizens suffer"

That said, I don't think Iranians should be barred from GitHub. Free exchange of ideas and code should be available universally.

> The goal of the sanctions are to make people of Iran so miserable that they would go in streets and start a revolution.

It's not the only or even the main goal. The main goal of such sanctions is to Iranian government to not have resources for war and terrorism. And it seems that in this regard, these sanctions work just fine.

I don't know what else could be reasonably expected from US by all the other ME countries.

> The main goal of such sanctions is to Iranian government to not have resources for war and terrorism.

Maybe against other countries, but they just end up using the resources they have to do that anyways... just against their own citizens. Sanctions are nothing more than using civilians with no choice as a pawn to force a revolution because we couldn't do it ourselves. It's kindof disgusting considering how many uninvolved bystanders turn into "collateral damage" in these situations.

> I don't know what else could be reasonably expected from US by all the other ME countries.

Beside leaving them alone and let them live in peace without American influence? Hm hard to say.

> leaving them alone

That is not possible when Iran threatens our allies and provides material support to organizations with the stated goal of causing mayhem to Americans and their allies.

Let’s be realistic: Iran and America are enemies. Keep that in mind when offering solutions.

Iran and America aren't enemies. Actually if you read the History from the relationship between both countries, you will see that Iran was always a strategic geopolitics partner from USA. Our "allies" aka Israel is totally capable to deal with the issue diplomatically, without any American interference. At the same time, without American interference in Europe, it would force Germany to diplomatically solve any pending issue with Russia too..

> read the History

Today we are enemies. It was different when the Shah was in power. I’m not talking about History. I’m talking about now.

The reality is that the US does about a 1000x more to hurt Iran then the other way around.

Iran threatens your 'allies' in a minimal way as they have basically no real military. Iran supports material support to some organizations that the US but mostly its allies don't like. The US supports about 100x more people Iran doesn't like and are just as hostile to Iran as Iranian allies are to the US.

And this is outside of arguments if the US should even be such strong allies with Saudi and co (including Israel).

And to simply say 'we are enemies therefore we can no change policy' is idiotic. The US and the Soviet Union were enemies, until in series of diplomatic talks many of the issues were resolved. The same goes for China.

The US has totally fucked up its relationship with Iran and its broader middle east politics in the last 50 years that is is hard to even comprehend the amount of utter and complete stupidity that went on.

Unfortunately HN post are not conductive to explaining all these issues. What I will point out is that we have lots of evidence from Political Science that sanctions are not effective to achieving political goals. We also have very good knowledge that the sanctions are not actually effective at what they are targeting.

Neither the missile sanctions nor the nuclear sanctions have actually achieved their goals. Democrats will of course argue that Obama nuclear sanctions were effective at 'forcing Iran to the table' but this is basically just putting on rose colored glasses if you actually understand the negotiations. Iran actually forced the US to give up on its some of its central demand, since despite sanctions the Iranian nuclear enrichment program (note, not weapons program) was not slowed down (in fact it went faster).

And what is even worse is that the US spent all this massive amount of effort on preventing Iran from doing and having all these things, while the US completely ignored things other nations did that are 100x worse violations. Israels nuclear nuclear weapons program, Pakistans nuclear weapons program, Saudi ICBMs are all far more dangerous then anything Iran had or was even aiming for and yet the US didn't lift a finger or in some cases closed it eyes to it.

All of UAE, Saudi, Qatar (and arguably Israel as well) support groups that are far worse and ideologically more opposed to what the US stands for compared to the groups Iran allies with. Yet, those are allies and not enemies.

Not trying to destroy the live of avg Iranians with sanctions and 'leaving them alone' is actually very reasonable and would help both the US, Iran and the middle east in general. That does not mean you can not still be opposed to each other on major issues.

"Beside leaving them alone and let them live in peace without American influence?"

Iran has no intentions of 'living in peace' and that's the whole point.

They are concerned with overthrowing House of Saud, controlling Yemen and Bahrain, antagonizing/surrounding Israel, being a controlling force in Syria and Lebanon, and of course, making Iraq a vassal state and controlling the Gulf.

That's just for starters.

The world would be delighted for Iran to get along with it's neighbours, after all, nobody is powerful enough to do them material harm anyhow.

So you are saying that US don't want competition in the region? Because what you described: "Control of Yemen and Bahrain, being a controlling force in Syria and Lebanon and making Iraq a Vassal state and controlling the Gulf" is exactly what US is trying to do since years in the region, no?

No.

The only special interest the US has is to hold the House of Saud stable so their Oil can be sold freely on global markets.

Other than that, they just want stability, as does everyone.

The US wouldn't even need to have ships in the Gulf if it were not for Iran. The 5th fleet is there to protect cargo from Iranian aggression.

Particularly between Egypt and Israel both for the defence of Israel and of course, that the Suez Canal stays open (open to everyone, by the way).

The US did not have anything other than a basic presence over there (5th Fleet in the Gulf) before 9/11 and that was after a major war in Iraq.

The US wants to take a 'hard position' in the ME about as they want to in South Asia. Or South America. Or Western Europe i.e. they don't. They don't really even want to be there.

Iran is super chauvinist antagonizing state - they don't simply want to 'live in peace' with their neighbours, far from it, they want to be the 'regional superpower' and take their historic position as dominating the Arabs, who they hate.

Right now, the Arab/Persian hate war is much worse than the traditional Muslim/Jewish hate war and it's causing problems.

The bulk of instability in the Middle East right now can be traced to Iran.

If Iran would just shut up and stay home, then there'd be some mopping up in Syria, Yemen might very well stabilize and then there would be peace in the ME like there has not been in centuries.

To see Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel getting along like buddies is basically shocking to everyone who remembers how bad it was, and they are 'besties' specifically because the mutual threat they face in Iran.

So, you are kind of being cynical or very simplistic in your answer.

The fact is: regional superpower cannot compete with the world superpower, right? The Saudis have always seen themselves as the exclusive outside power in Yemen, for example. They called US when when Iranian-backed Houthi rebels marched on Yemen’s capital city and overthrew the transitional government that came into power during the Arab Spring of 2011. So it's not just about Iran, but to assure the geopolitical control in the region (through Allies and Proxy wars), control the global price of Oil, and to avoid that - in case of War - nobody does to US, what US did to Japan in the WWII (stop fuel provision)

The new episode from "Intelligence Matters"[1] talks a lot of about that. It's not just because of Iran.

Reference: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/american-withdrawal-in...

It's neither cynical nor simplistic.

It's a positive view because the US, despite it's failings, is a positive and pragmatic actor.

It's not simplistic because I'm respecting the fact that 'geostability' is a primary concern, even as that might run counter to other objectives such as democracy, free markets etc.

"regional superpower cannot compete with the world superpower" of course they can and do.

It costs the US tremendously to project it's power in Iran obviously a 'full on war' between parties would be mostly decisive in the short run but that's besides the point.

You are failing to differentiate between the kind of power that the US projects vs Iran.

The US actually supports, and helps hold together the House of Saud and therefore stability in Saudi Arabia.

They otherwise don't interfere internally. They put some pressure on Saudis for social progress but that's that.

The US is trying to help 'hold things together'.

The result of this, is that Saudi can provide oil - not to America, but to the world, at market prices.

The only special provision that comes along with US protection of the Gulf is that the Saudis cannot for example sell their Oil exclusively to China or Russia or do some kind of big strategic deal with them.

Put another way - US presence there is to stop Russia/China or some other power from taking hold.

Saudi has an interest in Yemen because it's right on the border, and full of rebels who'd like to overthrow it, ultimately, they also want peace and stability.

Iran wants to cajole, control and antagonize the Arab states and Israel and not in a nice way. They now have Iraq as a vassal state, and they'd prefer the Arabs to be their vassals as well.

If Iran did not exist, there would be almost zero ongoing fighting right now in the ME. Syria, yes, but outside of that no.

That's not what most of the surrounding countries want. Almost all of the Iran's neighbours actively work to keep US pressure on it.

Enemies of Iran want the US tax payers to fund their own political project so they can spend their money on Swiss watches, German cars, American technology and imported woman from all over the world? Shocking that this would be the case.

Your statement is also not actually correct. And in so far it is correct, part of is that if they wouldn't support it, the US would consider them enemies as well.

Israel and Saudi Arabia aren't the most of surrounding countries. Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon.. they all are either pro Iran or "Neutral".

Your comment breaks my heart, and I hate what my country is doing to Iran. Reactionaries started the problems in 1953, and they're perpetuating and multiplying it today. Unfortunately for those of us who wish to appeal to the better natures of the right wing in the USA that support these sanctions, the cruelty is the point: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...

Note: the US has placed economic sanctions against Iran every single day for the last four decades - regardless of who was US president, or which party was in power.

>wish to appeal to the better natures of the right wing

You voted for the right wing last time you voted (I know because there are no one else to vote for). The Democrats are also right-wing, anti-Iran, pro-Israel, etc.

"Maximum Pressure campaign's goal is to make people so miserable, they'd rather face bullets/wars."

No, Iran, including the 'Regime' would actually be doing just fine if they dropped nuclear ambitions and stopped supporting the overthrow of Saudi Arabia.

It's an odd paradox, because even the Islamic Revolutionaries could be a quasi-ally of the US if they really wanted to. The US cares about security, predictability, trade and cooperation between state actors first, internal issues second.

" the maximum pressure campaign has rendered Iranian people completely miserable" - the Iranian government has rendered people miserable. Stop blaming the US for the bad behaviour of the regime.

Maybe we can have 'GitHub Diplomacy' ...

I feel badly for you, however, there's little evidence to suggest that we can change anything by voting. Mounting evidence suggest our "democracy" is a dog and pony show run by wealthy super villains, morally bankrupt politicians, and single-minded super-corporations.

Our best bet is coalesce around each other, the working class, and build a better system of world governance.

This will get downvoted but the truth is the US doesn't treat us any better. Plenty of people are given harsh sentences for victimless-crimes. Property is protected at all costs. The system is pay-to-play. You either get in line or are ostracized.

An overall negative view of democracy. If you actually pool people on most issues, the outcome of politics is not so far off from what people want.

The reality is that people simply don't care about Iran or know where it even is. Foreign policy issue outside of direct wars almost never dominate the political cycle.

And even if they do on a presidential level, since only the president is relevant vote for a national level it impact is minimal. Congress elections usually don't turn on foreign policy.

> the truth is the US doesn't treat us any better

The parent stated "But the Islamic Republic has no limits. They would shoot and kill and many as it takes." Parent also stated "The government is also quite scared, and to make sure there wont be uprisings, is spreading fear. They execute people and hand cruel sentences to everyone. Last weeks they gave a 10 years sentence to an 18 years makeup artist who had a famous Instagram account. Journalists are executed, etc. People's morale are completely shattered."

You, and others, don't have it better in the US? Really?

I think you are trying to show empathy and I agree with most of your comment, but to me, you can't empathize unless you've experienced it.

And I don't wish to demean experiences of some oppressed people in the US and their experiences (certainly the wrongfully convicted come to mind as a huge injustice), but your comment is not objectively accurate.

The US just voted for Biden who will probably have a different policy position than Trump and that's part of the package.

It works on some level.

Also, it's definitely the job of the US diplomatic corps to set out the strategy there because most plebes couldn't find Iran on a map.

It'd be nice to try to explain the policy better, but as I check in with TikTok for a few minutes now and again, I don't think there's much hope there.

This decision is proof of that. Microsoft can work to lobby the government to get access in Iran, but there's no way 50 person shop in Mississippi could even hope to without a few tens of millions to throw away on lobbyists or special interests groups.

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