This is an interesting article, but exposes the Economist's bias and lack of an honest historical accounting. While the it is new, interesting, and important th

This is an interesting article, but exposes the Economist's bias and lack of an honest historical accounting. While the it is new, interesting, and important that the world is becoming more skeptical of the dollar, it is kind of laughable that the only reference to Iraq and sanctions is the ones that were in the news recently. Iraq and many other countries have been subject to crippling US sanctions many times in the past. In the 1990s, sanctions were issued by the Clinton administration that were so severe that hospitals were scrubbing the floors with gasoline (https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/us-war-iraq-legacy-of-blood/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/us-war-iraq-legacy-of-bl...). https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-study-baghdad-hospitals-highlights-critical-needs https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-study-baghdad-hospita... "In June, 1991, Medicine For Peace medical teams began working in Baghdad pediatric hospitals. The following is a description of what they found: "The hospital was in darkness. Ventilators, incubators, dialysis machines were not functioning and any patients dependent on these support systems had died. We made ward rounds with Iraqi physicians, many trained in the US and Great Britain, who were despondent and demoralized. No x-rays, lab tests, or possibility of surgery. Worse of all, intravenous fluids and supplemental feedings for the scores of malnourished children were in short supply, the pharmacy had exhausted its store of antibiotics for treatable infections, and there was not one vial of morphine to relieve the pain of children suffering with tumors on the cancer ward." Outside of the US, economic sanctions of this magnitude are often regarded as war crimes. They are routinely deployed against the populations of official US enemies and have been for some time under the theory that if we make life as bad as possible for the people, maybe they'll overthrow the regime. Hint: It usually doesn't work and the regime uses the sanctions to (correctly) characterize itself as under attack by foreign enemies. In the modern instance, the case for sanctions in Iraq can only be described as barbarous bullying. The Iraqi government voted to remove US troops in response to an unprovoked assasination on an Iranian top general on their soil while performing what is claimed to be a diplomatic peace mission (another war crime). In response, the US employs sanctions to bully the Iraqis into acquiescing to an unending occupation that they have judged does not serve their interests. Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister (paraphrased, talking about austerity in Greece) said that where they used to use tanks, they now use banks. In the case of Iraq, sadly, tanks, banks, and aerial bombing have all been used in various combinations at various times.