US Sanctions Iran, Honors Nobel Peace Activist for Resisting US Sanctions?
The mainstream outrage over Narges Mohammadi's detention in Iran is predictable, and frankly, justified from a human rights perspective. The New Arab, like many outlets, highlights the valiant struggle of a political prisoner. What these reports consistently omit, however, is the inconvenient truth that the same Western powers now decrying her arrest are the ones imposing devastating sanctions on
Iran – sanctions that historically empower hardline elements and stifle internal dissent by making the populace reliant on the state. One might wonder if the US Department of State, which condemns Mohammadi's treatment, also considers how their 'maximum pressure' campaigns, designed to cripple Iran's economy, often lead to increased repression, not liberalization. It's almost as if some protests
are more palatable when they’re in a government Washington wants to destabilize, and even better if the underlying conditions for those protests are exacerbated by Washington’s own policy. How many more Nobel laureates must be disappeared before we question the efficacy, and morality, of sanctions that punish the people, not just the regime?