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> Iran has weathered decades of sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "we're going to starve you and deny your citizens basic medical care". The death toll

> Iran has weathered decades of sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "we're going to starve you and deny your citizens basic medical care". The death toll for this is also likely in the millions. Hi, I think millions is a drastic overstatement here which undermines the rest of your (often legitimate) claims. Also Israel seems to have fairly normal relations with many countries in the region, the difference seems to be they are "countries not publicly calling for the destruction of Israel".

jmyeet 7mo ago
Which "millions"? There's a lot to choose from. Oh, for context, John Mearscheimer puts the estimate on those killed by US sanctions (across all countries we've done this to) at 38 million [1]. I always have to bring up the sanctions on Iraq after Saddam was no longer our puppet. A UN report in the mid-1990s claimed US sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi children. Then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeline Albright responded by saying "the price was wroth it" [2]. As for the Iran-Iraq war, there are many estimates of the total deaths (across both sides) exceeding a million eg [3]. [1]: https://www.tiktok.com/@trtworld/video/7615994489991122194 https://www.tiktok.com/@trtworld/video/7615994489991122194 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1T5JRVR53Eo https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1T5JRVR53Eo [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/23/iran-iraq-war-anniversary https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/23/iran-iraq-war-...
- xyzzy123 7mo ago
  Iraq I will grant you, those sanctions were a travesty. Cuba bad too. In general, I don't find the argument that there were 38 million deaths from sanctions very convicing. That estimate is based on excess deaths and correlation. It is serious work. But it doesn't establish causal structure. What I mean is, those studies don't have the power to distinguish between (regime -> sanctions -> deaths) vs (regime -> deaths + regime -> sanctions). I would definitely agree that sanctions cost lives (e.g. unavailability of specialist medicines) but I don't see a specific mechanism whereby they cause "millions" of deaths without a complete failure of local governance.
- the_af 7mo ago
  > A UN report in the mid-1990s claimed US sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi children. Then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeline Albright responded by saying "the price was worth it" These kind of statements make my blood curdle. Much like Iran today, Iraq back then posed no threat to the US. So when Albright made these calculations, that "as much as it pained her", those 500,000 dead Iraqi children were "worth it", as long as Iraq threatened its neighbors blah blah blah... she's was being very, very callous. A war criminal wouldn't have said it better. "I'm willing to sacrifice children from some other country, as long as our military objectives are met, for the greater good!". I wonder if Albright would have made the same calculus were those children from her home town. Also, this in my mind goes to show this isn't a partisan issue. Democrats/Republicans, they are all pretty callous with wars in foreign lands. Trump is just very obnoxious about it, and pretty bad at planning, but they are all universally terrible.

jmyeet 7mo ago

Which "millions"? There's a lot to choose from. Oh, for context, John Mearscheimer puts the estimate on those killed by US sanctions (across all countries we've done this to) at 38 million [1]. I always have to bring up the sanctions on Iraq after Saddam was no longer our puppet. A UN report in the mid-1990s claimed US sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi children. Then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeline Albright responded by saying "the price was wroth it" [2]. As for the Iran-Iraq war, there are many estimates of the total deaths (across both sides) exceeding a million eg [3]. [1]: https://www.tiktok.com/@trtworld/video/7615994489991122194 https://www.tiktok.com/@trtworld/video/7615994489991122194 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1T5JRVR53Eo https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1T5JRVR53Eo [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/23/iran-iraq-war-anniversary https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/23/iran-iraq-war-...

xyzzy123 7mo ago
Iraq I will grant you, those sanctions were a travesty. Cuba bad too. In general, I don't find the argument that there were 38 million deaths from sanctions very convicing. That estimate is based on excess deaths and correlation. It is serious work. But it doesn't establish causal structure. What I mean is, those studies don't have the power to distinguish between (regime -> sanctions -> deaths) vs (regime -> deaths + regime -> sanctions). I would definitely agree that sanctions cost lives (e.g. unavailability of specialist medicines) but I don't see a specific mechanism whereby they cause "millions" of deaths without a complete failure of local governance.
the_af 7mo ago
> A UN report in the mid-1990s claimed US sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi children. Then UN ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeline Albright responded by saying "the price was worth it" These kind of statements make my blood curdle. Much like Iran today, Iraq back then posed no threat to the US. So when Albright made these calculations, that "as much as it pained her", those 500,000 dead Iraqi children were "worth it", as long as Iraq threatened its neighbors blah blah blah... she's was being very, very callous. A war criminal wouldn't have said it better. "I'm willing to sacrifice children from some other country, as long as our military objectives are met, for the greater good!". I wonder if Albright would have made the same calculus were those children from her home town. Also, this in my mind goes to show this isn't a partisan issue. Democrats/Republicans, they are all pretty callous with wars in foreign lands. Trump is just very obnoxious about it, and pretty bad at planning, but they are all universally terrible.