[Alupis]

> It's also about making sure the common person in $SANCTIONED_COUNTRY feels the pain.

This is exactly it - otherwise the populace can just ignore their government's foreign policy decisions. There's consequences for being a bad actor on the global stage... and today that means no more Minecraft, of all things.

Perhaps the OP can write a letter to their representative and pressure them to work on easing sanctions...

[cutemonster]

The people (in Iran) have been trying, but the dictators killed hundreds of people and put an end to that, for now at least.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahsa_Amini_protests

> otherwise the populace can just ignore their government's foreign policy decisions

It's a murderous regime. It's not a government that you can write letters to and vote away.

[Spivak]

Which is why I'm surprised the response is "sanctions" and not topple the government and install western democracy. It's what the countries imposing the sanctions want to happen anyway.

There's so much historical precedent for this working. If a consortium of Western militaries show up and say "join us fighting against your government or when we win you'll be killed/exiled as a traitor" the population will flip immediately.

It's not as if we don't do this already, we just quietly orchestrate violent revolutions and install people loyal to the west. This method would at least be more honest about it.

[philippejara]

What historical precedent? Just in the last 3 decades you had afghanistan, iraq, libya and (ongoing) syria in the middle east alone showing how horrific the consequences of this type of meddling are.

[Alupis]

> It's what the countries imposing the sanctions want to happen anyway.

Perhaps that's what the countries wish would happen - but there's dictatorships all around the world that don't enjoy the pointy end of the international community's proverbial sanction stick.

Iran simply has to stop being an international nuisance and people would happily return to doing business there.

In the past decade, we've had two US Administrations that desperately sought to warm relations with Iran. Ball is/was in Iran's court, and so far they keep forcing people to punish them...

[philippejara]

These aren't really consequences for being a bad actor on the global stage, these are consequences for being deemed a threat to the interests of the military superpowers and their close allies, this is a very important distinction.

The interests might at times be veiled under a discourse of "rights" or "democracy" or whatever and at times this discourse might even be valid, however the underlying reasoning for it rarely lies there as the kings and his friends are free to do whatever they please.

[lupusreal]

Their government says that America is an evil spiteful bully. The apparent truth of that claim has now been demonstrated to any Iranian who plays Minecraft. You think the result is more Iranians questioning their government? I doubt it.

[Alupis]

There are plenty of Iranians alive today that were around before the current Iranian government. Iranian youth are also much more "aware" of global politics than any generation before them...

I think it's difficult for most Iranians to not be aware of their government's decisions and actions around the globe...

Besides - what alternative would you propose? Just pretend everything is ok and business as usual? Bomb their government instead of using sanctions?

[rorroe53]

I would suggest creating sanctions that hurt those in power, meaning mainly old bearded men who probably don't play Minecraft. Ordinary people have no power to change anything over there, they get shot if they try.

[Alupis]

> I would suggest creating sanctions that hurt those in power

People in power remain in power by keeping the population under control. If the population is indifferent to consequences of the power-class' decisions, then everything can keep rolling along as-is. When the population is impacted negatively by the power-class' decisions - then civil unrest happens. With enough of that, the power-class loses power...

This[1] video does a decent job of highlighting the careful balancing act that's required to remain in power... it also highlights the difficulties of changing the status-quo even for a benevolent dictator that desires to remain a dictator - ie. they have to appease all of the powers-that-be under them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

[Maken]

By that same rule, they are also aware of other governments' decisions and actions around the globe.

Concretely, the Reddit user is clearly aware of why this is happening and is blaming the USA government, not his.

[Alupis]

Sure - but it would be ridiculous to expect the world to continue business as usual with a nation that has dedicated the past few decades to being as big of a nuisance as possible.

Given our administration's current views on Iran, and the Obama administration's similar views, it would have been trivial for Iran to be welcomed back into the international community.

Yet... they once again chose the opposite. So, today, that means no more Minecraft. Perhaps one day the population of Iran will have had enough of their government and make changes.