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by aarroyoc 269 days ago
These sanctions are not really effective. I think Cuba is the country that has had them for the most amount of time and... Nothing changed. Instead they force them to develop in house tech which may be better for them in the long term
6 comments

The sanctions on the Mullah regime have prevented financing of more proxies. There is a direct correlation between loosening enforcement and lifting such sanctions and increased support for Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. It's preposterous to claim that they do not work.
The US is the one arming terrorist proxies. See Syria with Jolani/Isis/Alqaeda...
>The sanctions on the Mullah regime have prevented financing of more proxies.

Less funding of proxies just means Israel gets away with killing more civilians without consequence.

You might say that, but the proxies weren't so keen on saving their citizens' lives either. Bashar Assad killed 600'000 of his own citizens. Hamas uses hospitals and UN schools as their command centers. Hezbollah has underground tunnels under civilian infrastructure where their leaders hide. The Iranian government assists with and finances the bombing on Jewish people all over the world. I wouldn't start pointing fingers so soon.
You are therefore agreeing that sanctions works, but you oppose the goals of the US government and wish they did not work.
Well, lets see how that worked out:

1. Hamas, an Iranian proxy, attacked Israel on October 7th 2023. Until that time, the death toll in the 100 years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about 10k Israels to 40k Palestinians. It since became 12k Israelis to 110k Palestinians. I don't think that proxy fulfilled its intention.

2. Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, attacked Israel on October 8th in support of Hamas. The ensuing war killed about 4k Lebanese. That proxy, too, seems to have failed in its mission to reduce the death tol..

3. The Houthis, yet another Iranian proxy, attacked Israel in support of Gaza. Since then, Israeli counter attacks killed several hundreds in Yemen. Not good.

Now these proxies are heavily damaged, deprived of most strategic capabilities and the death toll in the ensuing battles dwarfed all of the past deaths in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Sorry, it is not possible for Cuba to develop any sort of functioning in-house tech with a complete economic embargo. US also "pays" Cuba less than the cost of a NY apartment for its "leased" huge naval base - Guantanamo - the price of which has never changed since the original agreement taken at gun-point.
> Nothing changed

This is not true. The sanctions definitely hurt countries like Cuba or Russia. They have a far harder time growing their economy. Cuba is stuck in the last century and often has total blackouts that last for days. Russia needs to beg countries like Iran or North Korea now for imports.

Russian economy is booming actually, thanks to continued purchasing of oil and gas by Europe and other parts of the world, and the sanctions that block capital outflow out of the country.
> Russian economy is booming actually

Mostly the military, from what I hear. The rest of the economy is in shambles [1].

No matter what: once the war in Ukraine is over by whatever solution, it's going to get nasty. Either Putin (or, more likely, his successor - the dude is old and it's by far not sure if he will be able to stay in power should the war end up bad for Russia) manages to turn around the economy once again from producing tanks and other instruments of war to a regular economy, or they'll keep it that way... and attack another country with all that firepower.

[1] https://kyivindependent.com/amid-dwindling-economy-number-of...

There's a trickle down effect from it, same as with all massive government spending. Those factory workers who now have cushy jobs with large paychecks assembling tanks and cruise missiles then go and spend that money on other things.
Yet the ruling elites and military still enjoy decent quality of life, it´s mostly the ordinary people who suffer. In case of Russia that´s okay since large parts of the population genuinely support the war, but I´m not so sure about Iran and Cuba, where most are not supportive of their governments anyway.
The point isn't necessarily to make leadership suffer, but rather to prevent suffering of everyone who might be threatened by a strong Cuba/Iran/North Korea
In case of Cuba I think the sanctions regime is in part motivated by vindictiveness and in part to make an example for other nations in the americas of what happens when you evade US hegemony..
If the sanctions weren't effective Russia wouldn't be insisting on the lifting of the sanctions as a part of any Ukrainian deal.

The sanctions significantly slow down Russian development and are more and more making it into just a mineral mining satellite of China. With time the weakened Russia would just split, and the large eastern part will go to China. Some midparts, with Turkic speaking population may even fall into Turkey orbit. Without the oil and gas rich East, the European part of Russia will be just a destitute village on the far margins of civilized Europe as it had been for centuries in the past.

> If the sanctions weren't effective Russia wouldn't be insisting on the lifting of the sanctions as a part of any Ukrainian deal.

If the sanctions were effective Russia wouldn't be offering entirely one-sided deals that it knows nobody is going to accept, because it would be desperate enough to get those sanctions lifted that it would actually have to concede something in a deal.

Sanctions don't prevent the short-term behavior. Russia thinks that it is winning in Ukraine - thus the one-sided deals, it isn't about the other side accepting it, for Russia it is about Russia forcing such a deal, and it always includes lifting of the sanctions as a key element of a deal that Russia is trying to force because even with traditional lack of long-term vision they understand that the sanctions are crippling the country. They think that winning the war, forcing such a one-sided deal, is the only way to get the sanctions lifted "cleanly", and any deal with concessions, etc. would look less than victorious and would probably have the sanctions lift incomplete/incremental and boggled down with conditions, etc.
Ukrainian sanctions work.

Ask a russian about the price of fuel.

The European sanctions are more of a joke.

I you want to Ukraine to win donate to them directly instead of waiting for the cowardly politicians to get their act together.

Answering that specific question, 98 jumped up 16% this spring and... that's it. Except for that, it's an ordinary curve compared to, say, 5 years ago. And that's mostly the result of actually bombing the refineries.
I meant sanctions which are bombing russian refineries.

So they stories no fuel in Russia are just propaganda?

That's not sanctions, that's just warfare.

And yes, if US and EU were serious about helping Ukraine win, this would have already happened back in 2022. Or better yet, back in 2014.

As it is, US & EU sanctions seem to be more of a theater mostly for the benefit of the population of those countries, so that their politicians can sincerely say that they "support Ukraine".

Oh, makes sense.

Depends on the claim - some are, some aren't. The problem obviously exists, but the coverup is good enough to make lots of people think that the war happens on another planet and doesn't affect them (e.g. gasoline export ban).

"In breaking news, Russia is extending the complete ban on all petrol exports through the rest of 2025 for producers and distributors, and is banning diesel exports for distributors. Fuel shortages have spread to almost all of Russia, with the Ministry of Energy insisting that “all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the timely and uninterrupted supply of all essential fuel.”"

This story is getting better and better.

The above quite is from Malcontent News.

> Ukrainian sanctions work.

The only reasonable definition of "work" is "stop the thing that motivated the sanction from happening". With that definition, sanctions rarely work (or if they do, not in a very effective way). Russia is still at war with Ukraine. Iran is still developing nuclear weapons. North Korea did develop nuclear weapons.

Work?

Let's not kid ourselves. Russia is still killing Ukrainians right now. They're still occupying Ukraine's land right now. Is this what "work" looks like in your dictionary?

> Ask a russian about the price of fuel.

Oh I see. In your dictionary a working solution is not to stop the war or get lands back, but to ensure average Russian people suffer. Never mind then.

Oil is how Russia funds their war-machine. Bombing refineries makes it harder and less sustainable to keep the war going. It's not about making civilians suffer when you literally need to pressure the enemy into stopping the war by blowing up their infrastructure.
You can check prices for the largest gas station network here (table in the middle): https://lukoilazs.ru/category/stoimost-benzina-na-segodnya/

Prices are in RUB/L, 1 USD ~ 80 RUB, 1 EUR ~ 100 RUB.

Then make your own conclusion.

What do you think should be done? War? Nothing? Diplomacy didn't work.