U.S. Sanctions Must Stop
Sharon Tennison, director of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, has called for an end to the U.S. policy of sanctions against dozens of nations during a deadly global pandemic. We urge everyone to read her appeal, sign on to it, and distribute it further. *
CCI’s statement notes the foolishness of a policy which “affects the ability of [other] countries to contain the [COVID-19] outbreak, leading in turn to more infections” and the likelihood that the virus will then spread beyond those nations’ borders, restarting the global outbreak
CCI’s appeal draws attention to the obvious inhumanity of the United States’ actions against Iran in particular, a country whose economy was already in shambles thanks to the so-called ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions regime imposed by the Trump administration in 2017 after Washington unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal. The resulting economic crunch and blow to the country’s medical system had already, before the pandemic, precipitated a humanitarian crisis in Iran. It is worth adding that, according to a recent prognosis from researchers at the Sharif University of Technology in Iran, the coronavirus death toll in Iran could ultimately end up numbering in the millions.[1]
Although even U.S. allies such as the UK have now called on the United States to remove its sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration has, to the contrary, tightened them further. At a recent press conference on the subject, President Trump can be heard repeating, “They know what to do” even as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserts that food and medications are exempt from the sanctions.
Pompeo’s assertion doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, however. As was recently pointed out by Assal Rad, research fellow at the U.S. non-profit National Iranian American Council, it is true that Iran, in the purely formal sense, has not been forbidden from purchasing food and medications. But since U.S. sanctions make it impossible for banks to process such external purchases by Iran, this purely on-paper ‘exemption’ is in fact wholly fictional.[2]
Mike Pompeo, an Evangelical Christian, has thereby turned the Good Samaritan parable on its head. In the well-known parable, a Jewish man is lying half dead from his injuries by the roadside, after being beaten by robbers. The Samaritan, a member of an outside sect, spends his money and time to help the injured man. What not everyone realizes is that the Samaritans and Palestine’s Jews at this time considered one another heretics, and had confronted one another in bitter armed conflict. The Samaritan here is showing compassion toward a traditional foe who is suffering. Pompeo and company are doing the exact opposite. [3]
Tennison also notes, correctly, that similar sanctions -- on scant justification and often against international law -- have been deployed by the United States against many other countries, of which probably Venezuela and Cuba suffer the most. Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned Columbia University economist, estimated in an April 2019 study that some 40,000 Venezuelans had already died at that point due to the sanctions the Trump administration imposed in 2017.
Russia, for its part, is likewise a long-time target of U.S. sanctions. In that country’s case, there is some evidence that, on balance, their domestic economy may have even derived from them a net benefit. If so, it would be unsurprising, given Russia’s large reserves of underutilized human and physical capital. But let’s leave those details to the economists. What is indisputable is that that the United States’ needlessly aggressive sanctions against Russia have exacted an ‘opportunity cost.’ Instead of addressing actually existing problems – global pandemic prevention, for example, or climate change -- we have engaged instead in endless navel gazing exercises, have spent years worrying about inconsequential RT broadcasts and Facebook ads; and to top it off, we have trashed almost every last arms control agreement with the only other nuclear superpower on the planet. How can this be described as anything but complete idiocy?
As for the Iranian case, how is it possible to justify putting innocent Iranians, possibly millions of them, at risk of suffocating to death from COVID-19? There can be no such justification, just as there can be no justification for rape or torture. ‘Policy goals’ have nothing to do with it. It is obviously everyone’s moral duty to speak out against what is morally intolerable. And yet, and yet, in a political system such as ours, how does one ‘speak out’?
We can sign on to Sharon Tennison’s appeal. We can gather signatures. All this is good and correct. It is the next step that is difficult to imagine. To exactly whom do we then direct this appeal, these signatures? To the U.S. Congress? The Press? The ‘authorities’?
The word authority here reveals the true depth of our dilemma. Legitimate authority has all but disappeared in this country. On the one hand, the fact of these cruel sanctions witnesses to the failure of legitimate authority in today’s America.[4] Our problem is even worse, however. It appears that all sides of the political spectrum, on both the left and the right, have simply forgotten what the word authority even means.
What is authority? Michael Hanby, in a recent First Things essay redolent with insights reminiscent of Simone Weil, notes that the legitimacy conferred by authority is “ … incapable of ‘proof’ on the basis of something more ‘basic.’ It compels principally by its own self-evidence. This is the crucial difference between auctoritas and potestas. Authority possesses no extrinsic force; it can compel only intrinsically, by evoking recognition and love …”[5]
To think that freedom is a power, and power simply -- that is where we have gone wrong; that is why our culture as a whole no longer understands the difference between force and authority. As Patrick Lawrence just recently noted in his essay on this same topic of sanctions, [6] unless the United States quickly comes to its senses and steps back from such cruelties, we will soon discover that the rest of the planet no longer recognizes our authority, and as a result our much vaunted power will also decline, probably precipitously.
Notes
*To join CCI’s appeal, send your name to Sharon Tennison at sharon@ccisf.org .
[1] Cited in journalist Aaron Maté’s interview with Assal Rad in “Trump Administration Intensifies Murderous Sanctions on Iran during COVID-19 Crisis,” Grazyone, March 23, 2020.
[2] Ibid.
[3] The New Testament passage concludes: “‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ “(Luke 10:25-37, NIV).
[4] It is worth noting that there was only one U.S. senator who refused to sign on to the renewal of U.S. sanctions against Iran back in 2017 – Bernie Sanders.
[5] Michael Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” First Things, March 2020. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/03/for-and-against-integralism
[6] Patrick Lawrence, “US Defiles ‘Common Humanity’ During Pandemic,” ConsortiumNews, March 30, 2020. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/30/patrick-lawrence-us-defiles-common-humanity-during-pandemic/