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Tangentially related: something I recall hearing a lot from the anti-interventionist left/Ron Paul libertarian/paleocon spheres ca. 2008-2012 was the idea that sanctions and embargoes (on Iran and Cuba, at that time) are actually counterproductive to the stated goal of spreading democracy, because they provide an easy foreign scapegoat for dictators to pin their economic woes on, and the resulting “rally ‘round the flag” effect ironically gives the sanctioned regimes more domestic popular support than they would otherwise enjoy.
On the one hand, this seems like a pretty galaxy-brained take; surely, from the perspective of the man in the streets of Tehran or Havana, the more obvious conclusion is, “If our regime fell and we played ball with the Americans, they’d lift the sanctions and we wouldn’t be poor!”
But on the other, national pride is a hell of a drug, and I can definitely imagine the ordinary people of a sovereign nation—particularly one like Iran, with such a long history of being the premier regional power and a bulwark of refinement and culture—chafing at the prospect of bending the knee to foreign interlopers. Anecdatally, during the US/Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer, I remember seeing assimilated, secular Persian-Americans on social media furiously condemning the US and Israel, even to the point of supporting the Ayatollah, whose very name they seldom utter without a curse before and after (cf. the old saw about not realizing “damn Yankee” was two separate words). In many cases, they were the very same people who took to the
streetstweets during the anti-regime protests of 2009 and 2022!Does anyone have any hard data on how true this hypothesis is?
Absolutely nobody is going to think this. They are going to look at what happened when the regimes in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan fell and they played ball with the Americans. Compared to what Libya turned into, the regime is going to look pretty great by comparison.
Except for Libya, none of your examples involve a regime being overthrown from within by forces wanting an end to the sanctions, or voluntarily submitting to American demands in order to end the sanctions. Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all cases where the powers that be (well, were) pointedly refused to play ball, boldly stood up to American threats, and were invaded/couped in short order. If anything, they should serve as cautionary tales of what happens when you don’t play nice with America.
First of all, even if we just take Libya as the example it serves to make my point by itself. When you compare what Libya was before the fall of Gaddafi to the open-air slave markets that replaced him, I can't imagine that any reasonable person would want that for their country (or even any countries near them).
But the point I was trying to make was that the regimes in those countries did fall and get knocked out by American intervention (or assistance in the case of Syria), which is what is being proposed for Iran. In no case did the American intervention result in a positive change for the countries involved - and everyone else in the region can see exactly what happened.
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National pride doesn't provide working electricity or keep you warm in the winter. The current protests in Iran seem to mostly be caused by the dire economic situation, which has only come about due to sanctions.
I also think a mistake you might be making is assuming that the primary aim of sanctions is to spread democracy in the first place, rather than as a means of weakening an enemy state so it's less able to harm you. A state that's poorer is one that's less able to buy weapons, pay soldiers, fund an air force etc.
No, sanctions are not responsible for decades of Islamic socialism driving the economy into the ground and hyperinflation via mismanagement. Don't take it from me, take it from Iran's president.
The dire economic situation is the underlying reality that triggers mass discontent, but there have been plenty of mass protests before for democratic reforms (not regime change).
I don't doubt that incompetence has a large role to play, but I think sanctions have to be somewhat responsible. I don't think you can claim for instance that their economy would be just as bad if they were as free to take part in global trade as Germany.
Sure, it's not nothing. They could sell oil to China at market prices instead of at a discount, for example.
But, as with Cuba, sanctions a supporting factor.
Also, lol, consider how shitty Germany's economy is without any US sanctions.
Germany is mismanaging its economy in its own unique way, but it's still doing a lot better than Iran.
Just about everyone is doing "a lot better" than Iran, since they have hyperinflation and water shortages.
The debated point was, "How much is that a result of US sanctions vs. mismanagement?"
I was pointing out Germany was a funny example to bring up since they have managed to royally fuck up their economy the last while with unforced errors.
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