[jmyeet]

To dismiss the impact of economic sanctions is at best intellectually dishonest. Economic sanctions aren't a natural disaster. Somebody is imposing them. Who, exactly? And why?

Also, US allies (ie Israel) can kill hundreds of thousands of people without any consequences. In fact, we bankroll the weapons they use to do it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

So why are the documented atrocities of one country not an issue at all but the transgressions of another country worthy of starving that country for decades? What's different between these two? And who is making that determination?

[HDThoreaun]

Iran has no one to blame for the sanctions but themselves. The conditions to drop them have been clear, they have refused. Fine, but you dont get to then turn around and blame the sanctioning countries for the situation you put yourself in.

[Hikikomori]

US and Britain is largely the reason why they're in power in Iran today thanks to their coup and destabilization of the country. And more recently Israel just killed their diplomatic negotiators. Guess they shouldn't have had all that oil if they didn't want to get raped by American imperialism.

[HDThoreaun]

Always with the excuses lmao. Dictatorships exist because the people they rule over allow them to. The iranian revolution is yet another example of the people refusing to live under a government they didnt like. When your government sucks its the peoples fault, especially when the government isnt a foreign occupier but a homegrown political movement. Did the US meddling in iran hurt iranians? Sure, but they made the situation worse for themselves over and over again throughout the past 50 years instead of fixing the problem. Every country has had to deal with foreign meddling, some rise to the challenge and some wallow, only making things worse and worse

[jmyeet]

"People are responsible for their governments" is what I like to call the "Osama bin Laden defense". Put another way, if people are responsible for their governments, that makes any civilian a valid military target.

Taken further, the US has actively deposed or supported the coups of over 50 governments since WW2 [1]. That includes Iranian Revolution of 1979 (where the US supported Khomenei) and Pinochet in Chile. It also includes puppets like Saddam Hussein who committed all sorts of crimes as a US ally including using nerve gas on the Kurds. US sanctions killed half a million children in Iraq according to a UN report. When confronted with this, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeline Albright said "the price is worth it" [2].

Economic sanctions are a sanitized way of saying "starving people" and the track record is bleak. Arguably the only time they've ever worked is apartheid South Africa. What they do instead is entrench the very government we supposedly want to get rid of eg North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Russia [3].

So I would respectfully put this to you: you haven't thought this through.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

[2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...

[3]: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/th...

[HDThoreaun]

The only reason Iran is starving is because their corrupt, incompetent government diverted all the water to insider usage and agriculture imploded. A government that was installed by a domestic political movement with minimal foreign influence. As I said there are certainly instances where the people can’t end their government because of foreign influence, Iran is in no way an example of that. Their domestic political movement fucked themselves and they can only blame themselves.

[Hikikomori]

It's really astounding how you can argue from a position of complete ignorance.