Hacker News Reader

Comment by Atlas667 | Hacker News Reader

Many are protesting because of the sanctions, considered war crimes, imposed by the west onto them.

The US and its allies have attacked the currency and the availability of goods for the common Iranian. This is how regime change works. This is what is happening in Cuba as well. You starve and disenfranchise the average person to make regime change by internal bad-actors more successful.

Therefore many citizens protest against their conditions, not against their government. The misconstruing of this reality is intentional and an essential part of war mongering.

We understand this and we are smarter than the BBC thinks we are. Now ask yourself why must young Americans in the armed forces put their lives on the line for this?

View on HN

While the sanctions may have triggered the current round of protests, what about the previous rounds? [1] Why are you ignoring those? Many Iranians hate their regime because it’s an oppressive theocratic one.

Just as an example of why Iranians would hate their regime, the mismanagement and corruption in the area of water management has led to severe water shortages in Tehran and other areas [2].

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/iran-a-timeline-of-mass-protests-since...

[2] https://e360.yale.edu/features/iran-water-drought-dams-qanat...

I believe I have a somewhat unique perspective on this as a communist.

Capitalist governments, even theocratic ones, are trash for the working class. That would explain those previous protests. Corruption is a totally normal thing in western countries as well. It just doesn't get broadcast in a politicized way, if at all, in our media. (not a coincidence)

Our local capitalist media jut makes it seem louder in certain places when there is an interest, such as the downfall of the Iranian state.

Is this sound enough logic for you to approve sending American kids to die over there?

Corruption is abundant in every kind of government. Communism doesn’t solve corruption

Right, nothing can, but it is harder to corrupt when the state isn't a handful of people with shields of bureaucracy where access to power can only be attained by the richest individuals in that society.

Communism isn't "let the state do more things" as many think. Communism is "make all of the people into the state". Cut out the middle-man, so to say. Direct democracy, peoples councils, peoples courts, all with a worldview that keeps it that way; socialism/communism. It's intention, as a movement is to not to leave political power to an external organization. To organize your workplace, neighborhood, town and city, into its own political power.

I think it's right and honest to admit that this is one of the methods that sanctions are supposed to work. But it's also not the only method - and framing the intent as inducing "regime change by internal bad-actors" is also a very slanted way to articulate intent, as well as what is happening on the ground.

On the other hand, without being on the ground, we cannot really say what the real balance of grievances are.

"Sanctions" are just a sanitized way of saying "forced starvation" and "denying basic medical care" because that's what happens. For Cuba, this has been going on so long that the CIA documents about the effect of sanctions and a blockade itself has been declassified (in 2005) [1]. When faced with a UN report that estimated 500,000 children had been killed by US sanctions in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later US Secretary of State Madeline Albright famously said "the price was worth it" [2].

And sanctions don't actually work. Not against enemies anyway. Just like Cuba has endured 60+ years of sanctions and Russia has endured Ukraine-related sanctions, enemies have or build an economy to be resilient to the sanctions to the point that the regime survives, even thrives in the face of perceived exteranl threats.

Probably the only successful use of sanctions was South Africa. Why? Because apartheid South Africa was an ally so the BDS movement crippled the economy.

And most of the time sanctions have no other reason than the affected country dared to not be exploited by the West and Western companies.

[1]: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R00904A0008000...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iFYaeoE3n4

Funny that this is downvoted. I guess its not fitting the mainstream 'feel good about ourselved, bad, bad, Iran' narrative. Just have a look at Besson's Davos interview.

You only think that because your political partisanship overwhelms your geopolitical knowledge. But sure, a country that is the primary funder of terrorism in the ME is doing nothing wrong.

They didn't, for instance, mess up the building of water infrastructure which is causing the taps to run dry in their capitol. Oh wait, they did. But since that has nothing to do with sanctions, you didn't hear about it because it doesn't fit a specific political narrative.

Also, apparently everyone in the world has the right to trade with the west, even if they are doing everything in their power to destroy the west.

PS Iran funds the Russian war in Ukraine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com