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> > Sanctions are designed as [..] when the people amplify the pressure beyond the point the government can withstand > Do you have any historic evidence that

> > Sanctions are designed as [..] when the people amplify the pressure beyond the point the government can withstand > Do you have any historic evidence that it ever worked like this? It worked on South Africa. My hope is similar sanctions could be put on Israel to force it to end the occupation of Palestine. But in these cases the sanctions are for specific wrongdoings that the State can address. The US sanctions against Venezuela, Iran and previously on Cuba are much broader in scope. The US is essentially saying "we will sanction you until you roll over and die" which is of course completely counter-productive. The mullahs in Iran aren't going to surrender just because the US tells them to.

lonelappde 7y ago
It worked because apartheid SA didn't have an oppressive government (for whites), it had a democratic opppressive populace. Blacks in SA were wholly disenfranchised who had near 0 participation in the national economy and wealth, so sanctions had no affect on them, but did affect the middle class who colluded in their oppression.
yyyk 7y ago
"It worked on South Africa... in these cases the sanctions are for specific wrongdoings that the State can address." Apartheid South Africa was justifiably asked to change their entire government system, and to hand over power from the ruling racial minority to the majority. Iran - even according to Pompeo's maximalist "12 demands"[0] - is being asked for far less: none of the demands relate to internal affairs, much less asking the mullahs to lose influence on the government. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/mike-pompeo-speech-12-demands-iran-180521151737787.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/mike-pompeo-speech-12...
- bjourne 7y ago
  Fair point. I read somewhere that complying with the US demands would be equivalent to "roll over and die" and that the US didn't expect compliance at all. Maybe not then.
- js8 7y ago
  There is also a question (even if we take the demands at the face value, for the sake of argument), how can public in Iran reasonably check that government is following these demands? Really, how is that going to work operationally. Let's say I am demonstrating at the street in Tehran. I can readily tell that there is undemocratic oppression, OK. But how can I check that the government is not developing nuclear weapons or supporting terrorism, when this is hard to tell for normal citizen even in democratic countries? IMHO, for the objectives to make sense, it would require these to be verifiable by the people pressuring the government (which you have so kindly decided to pull into the conflict). The fact that these demands are not verifiable is casting a shadow over the motives.
  - espeed 7y ago
    The big corporations of the world keep their governments in check. And the corporations within countries are kept in check by the market forces from their competing interests, government regulation, consumer perception and demand. At the international level, the international corporations located in multiple countries don't want the different countries they're in going to war with each other, and so the massive leverage of international corporations in open markets provide an invisible hand of unseen forces that keep wars at bay.
    - js8 7y ago
      If this is supposed to answer my question, I don't understand how. (I do however agree that international trade helps to avoid war, but that is in itself an additional argument against sanctions.)
  - yyyk 7y ago
    You as an individual can check very little. That's true even in a full democracy. Even in a full democracy, you often have to rely on friends, media and civil society to know what's going on. If there's is some space for an opposition (which your demonstration example implicitly assumes), there's some space for listening to non-regime media and organizations. Indeed, many people in Iran use Satellite TV despite it being officially banned. They may or may not trust American-owned TV, but there are plenty of alternatives. If, for example, inspectors are not allowed to check for nuclear activity, the world would raise a ruckus and the average Iranian citizen will be able to hear it and evaluate the validity of these claims, even if the regime tried to hide it. That said, I suspect the intention of the current American administration is to do a new deal with the regime, not to have the people rise up. They may wish for that scenario, but it's not something they are working towards or something they rely on in order to pressure the regime.

lonelappde 7y ago

It worked because apartheid SA didn't have an oppressive government (for whites), it had a democratic opppressive populace. Blacks in SA were wholly disenfranchised who had near 0 participation in the national economy and wealth, so sanctions had no affect on them, but did affect the middle class who colluded in their oppression.

yyyk 7y ago

"It worked on South Africa... in these cases the sanctions are for specific wrongdoings that the State can address." Apartheid South Africa was justifiably asked to change their entire government system, and to hand over power from the ruling racial minority to the majority. Iran - even according to Pompeo's maximalist "12 demands"[0] - is being asked for far less: none of the demands relate to internal affairs, much less asking the mullahs to lose influence on the government. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/mike-pompeo-speech-12-demands-iran-180521151737787.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/mike-pompeo-speech-12...

bjourne 7y ago
Fair point. I read somewhere that complying with the US demands would be equivalent to "roll over and die" and that the US didn't expect compliance at all. Maybe not then.
js8 7y ago
There is also a question (even if we take the demands at the face value, for the sake of argument), how can public in Iran reasonably check that government is following these demands? Really, how is that going to work operationally. Let's say I am demonstrating at the street in Tehran. I can readily tell that there is undemocratic oppression, OK. But how can I check that the government is not developing nuclear weapons or supporting terrorism, when this is hard to tell for normal citizen even in democratic countries? IMHO, for the objectives to make sense, it would require these to be verifiable by the people pressuring the government (which you have so kindly decided to pull into the conflict). The fact that these demands are not verifiable is casting a shadow over the motives.
- espeed 7y ago
  The big corporations of the world keep their governments in check. And the corporations within countries are kept in check by the market forces from their competing interests, government regulation, consumer perception and demand. At the international level, the international corporations located in multiple countries don't want the different countries they're in going to war with each other, and so the massive leverage of international corporations in open markets provide an invisible hand of unseen forces that keep wars at bay.
  - js8 7y ago
    If this is supposed to answer my question, I don't understand how. (I do however agree that international trade helps to avoid war, but that is in itself an additional argument against sanctions.)
- yyyk 7y ago
  You as an individual can check very little. That's true even in a full democracy. Even in a full democracy, you often have to rely on friends, media and civil society to know what's going on. If there's is some space for an opposition (which your demonstration example implicitly assumes), there's some space for listening to non-regime media and organizations. Indeed, many people in Iran use Satellite TV despite it being officially banned. They may or may not trust American-owned TV, but there are plenty of alternatives. If, for example, inspectors are not allowed to check for nuclear activity, the world would raise a ruckus and the average Iranian citizen will be able to hear it and evaluate the validity of these claims, even if the regime tried to hide it. That said, I suspect the intention of the current American administration is to do a new deal with the regime, not to have the people rise up. They may wish for that scenario, but it's not something they are working towards or something they rely on in order to pressure the regime.