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To Arj:

The article by Prof. Sahimi addresses the issue of the direct effect of the harsh sanctions on ordinary Iranians, specifically those with illnesses that require advanced medicines not produced locally. It is not an article about the IRI's incompetence in managing Iran's economy, which nobody questions.

Alternatives do exist in creating change in Iran but that is not the objective of those imposing sanctions or wanting to take military action against Iran. You may want to read "How Iran Will Retaliate?" to get a better idea of what really is going on. Here is the link:

//iranian.com/main/2012/aug/how-will-iran...

No rosy alternatives!

Mr. Alireza, I'm afraid you are confusing several issues here! For one thing, ordinary people's suffering did not start with the new round of sanctions, for the IRI economy in general, and IRGC's activities in particualr -- which are based on piracy, speculatory activities, smuggling, black market trading, currency manipulation, insdier trading, etc. -- are not the result of sanctions in essence, but rather a part of the nature of the Islamic regime.

We are where we are, and people are suffering, because IRI does not put people's interests and well-being as its first priority, but rather focusing on how to dominate the Islamic world, accommodate the 12th Emam's return and increase the Shia population at any cost -- e.g. by either paying people of the third world Moslim countries to convert or scrapping the domestic population control. As a result, this regime has managed to squander 700 billion dollars of our nation's oil revenue in the last 7 years alone without having to be responsible to anyone but Emam Zaman and whatever gods or other supreme beings they believe in!

Hence, expecting such a regime to actually care about people's sustenance, well being and livelihood is all but a futile wish!  It's also naive at best, or disingenious at worst, to expect financial clarity from a regime without the faintest political clarity whatsoever. Moreover, what you refer to as "private sector," in addition to the public sector is dominated by a bunch of pasdars and bacheh akhoonds who benefit from a rentier economy and for whom the notion of "free trade" and fair competition is sacrilegious and blasphemous!

Lastly, with regards to the effects of the new sanction, give it some time and you'll see how the regime will start backpeddling on what it arduously defended as uncompromisable "red lines." For it already is starting to feel the pinch as its agents are increasingly finding it more and more difficult to set up money-laundering accounts and front companies in sarrogate countries like UAE, Turkey, Malaysia...

All in all, these indeed are unfortuante situations that our country has to go through. But come to think of it, what would be the alternative considering the utterly disasterous trajectory of IRI's agenda in the past three decades and the foreseeable future?!  

At the beginning in 1979

At the beginning in 1979 everything was great. The Shah had gone and business was as usual. But there was one major difference.

The new kid on the block needed his own weapons. The weapon suppliers were in business again.

You all know what I am saying. It is not that complicated. The last thing the world needs is another Japan in West Asia. That is why they stopped the old regime. The war with Iraq took care of progress and legitimized the IRGC.

But it did not work. GW Bush noticed that the new kids on the block were doing what the Shah was doing. Normal business was back again. Shit he had to slow it down. He then gave reasons for the neocons in Iran to come out of the wood work. He created the axis of evil.

What the neocons know, is that small businesses and non capital intensive businesses, are a threat. Better to have a couple of generals have all the money and waste it all on white elephants like centrifuges etc. Money should not go to grass roots or infrastructure projects. They liked the Shah, when he was blowing it all away in weapons. But once he stopped, he was out. The same will happen to IRGC. Or will the zeal of Islam keep them from becoming complacent.

Now here is the solution. What the big companies, and it is them we are talking about, not US government, need is a place where they can use the labour and natural resources to make profit. Iran and the other Western Asian countries can be a massive counterbalance to East Asian titans like Japan Korea etc etc.

China knows that ultimately it needs to keep Iran. The Shah should have seriously had better contacts in China. I know the last Ambassador of Iran to China. They were not as shrewd as IRGC.

Our problem now will only be solved if you lot can establish new contacts with the Chinese and present an alternative to the IRGC.

Can you?

Sorry it started off as one sentence then it just grew lol
@alimostofi
FB: astrologer.alimostofi

Obviously sanctions are NOT working

The strongest and the second strongest men in the world are from Iran!

Hardly a sign of poor nutrition!

//iranian.com/main/blog/r2-d2/video-third-gold-medal-and-second-silver-medal-iran-london-olympics

I wondered where all those chickens disappeared to? :)) 

To Arj:

You write:

"However, the UN sanction -- and even the sanctions regime that the Obama administration has put in place -- have so far been most effective in hurting IRI's underbelly without necessarily a direct effect on ordinary people, for they've been designed to target IRI's coffers and the IRGC financial empire rather than ordinary people's livelihood!"

I don't know which press release you got that from, Obama's or Netanyahu's, but it is total nonsense. I live in Iran and I can tell you the Sepah crowd are doing just fine and in actual fact are making a bigger profit because of the sanctions.

I personally know three dozen unemployed young Iranians, three private businesses that have been forced to close, and countless business deals that have either fallen through or are on hold because of problems directly related to the sanctions. And all of this is effecting ordinary Iranians and not laying a glove on the regime or the Sepah.

The sanctions are a total failure because they are only strengthening the regime.

In the fact the exact opposite is what is needed. Free trade, free travel, free flow of capital, direct foreign investment, as this will all be a huge boost to the private sector and will counterbalance the regime.

هر گردی گردو نیست!

There are overt and closet-warmongers who advocate air, land and sea embargo of Iran, knowing that it is tantamount to an all out war. For it would eventually lead to a military confrontation as it involves armed forces who will be put in charge of implimenting the blockage and search assignments.

Having said that, a categorical dismissal of sanctions, however, would be equally as criminal as either overtly or covertly advocating war! The complicated situation under IRI and IRGC's parasitic clautch on Iran's economy makes the sanctions issue more than a simple black and white matter. Mutch of the sufferings of the Iranian people are due to IRGC's monopoly on Iranian economy and its speculatory activities. Hence, there is no way to curb IRI's criminal activities -- whether towards our own people or abroad -- through sanctions without affecting the whole of Iranian economy and/or ordinary people,

However, the new UN sanctions -- and even the sanctions regime put in place by the Obama administration -- have so far been most effective in hurting IRI's underbelly without necessarily a direct effect on ordinary people, for they've been designed to target IRI's coffers and the IRGC financial empire rather than ordinary people's livelihood!

Nonetheless, it is an unfortunate circumstance to see our homeland go through such dire situations. Yet, chances are that even without sanctions, our nation and its ordinary people would suffer due to IRI and IRGC's chokehold on our economy and its criminal reverberations throughout the society. It's rather sad to try to imagine where the half-trillion dollars oil revenue (since Ahmadainejad's taking office) has gone! Certainly not on ordinary people's kitchen tables!

To: Fesenkhoon2

The British have an expression that fits you very well Fesenkhoon2:

"bloody minded"

The bombing, crippling sanctions, and burning of Quran's is your solution, is it?

None of the above is a solution but instead the path of creating greater extremism, more hate, and terrible suffering for the innocent.

You either need to grow up, learn some history, or find an outlet for all that bloody mindedness before you have a "sekte maaghzi, which in your case may be an improvement.

The only and only solution

1. Bomb the Sepah and Baseej installations, nuclear reactors, bases, and industrial facilities to ashes. Bomb the hell out of them all! If theyre itching for war, LET THEM HAVE IT and lets see if their IMAM ZAMAN will come to save their sorry souls!

2. Choke them with sanctions. For 35 years we lived like shit, under tyranny and poverty. NOW, after 35 years, the bastard mullahs start blaming our poverty under sanctions! As if we havent been suffering already all these years!! Helloooooooooooooooooooo! People have been selling their kidneys for 35 years just to pay their bills, all while we were 2nd or 3rd in OPEC production. And where did all the revenue go? To Rahbar and his buddies, to the Baseej and Bonyad, and to Lebanon and Hamas! bisharaf haaye naamard! Do you think people are so stupid not to see thru your lies???!!!

3. Burn their Qurans!!! Expose the SAVAGE ideology of HATE that has devastated and plagued this land and killed over a million Iranians since 1979:

//morisirani.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post_05.html 

khejaalat nakesheed ye vaght

Yes. Dont be ashamed to be the foot soldiers of Khamenei.

Lifting the sanctions means 35 more years of misery. Lifting the sanctions means 35 more years of this:

//1.bp.blogspot.com/_c3WtQv44wGc/SzqdmpX67DI/AAAAAAAACFU/pYMK-r1xDgs/s640/Policeman.bmp

You want bloody hands? I'll show you bloody hands:

//www.culsans.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Blood-Soaked-Man-Iran.jpg

You want bloody hands? I'll show you bloody hands:

//www.yopyop.com/citizens/more.php?id=A89_0_1_0_M 

You want bloody hands? I'll show you bloody hands:

//www.toolegitclothing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/iran-demo-blood.jpg 

You want bloody hands? I'll show you bloody hands:

//www.dreamlandblog.com/2011/06/14/i/02,11,47/

You want bloody hands? I'll show you bloody hands:

//i.usatoday.net/news/gallery/2009/n090615_iran/04-iran-blood-n090620.jpg 

You want bloody hands? I'll show you bloody hands:

//iconolo.gy/sites/default/files/iran.protest.blood_.getty_.gal_.jpg

khejaalat nakesheed ye vaght. 

Any more bloody hands?

Any more bloody hands going to be held up as a vote for more crippling sanctions?

Don't be shy.

Where are all the Netanyahu foot soldiers that troll this site 24/7?

the nerve!

IRI is building free power plants for Iraq

//iranian.com/main/news/2012/07/22-4

IRI is building 18 floor hospitals for Iraq

//iranian.com/main/news/2012/06/25/18

Forget the millions they spend every year in Lebanon and Syria and India and Africa and God knows where, just so that they can buy more votes in the Non-Aligned Movement against the US. PATHETIC!

If people in Iran are suffering it is ONLY and ONLY because the Islamic Republic doesnt give a rats rear for them. The only thing the Islamic Republic cares about is arresting women for showing a patch of hair, and segregating the sexes in universities. Are you f***ing kidding me?! 

Like I said, Iran is a country ruled by the most incompetent fools ever to walk the Earth:

//iranian.com/main/blog/fesenjoon2/iran-country-fools

A misleading article posted by an Islamist

The article suggests that the needy poor can't get their drugs because of sanctions!. In fact there are no sanctions on impoting drugs. If the needy poor can't get their drugs it is because the terrorist regime CHOOSES to spent its scarce resources on terrorist causes, such as paying $400 million/year to hezbollah and more to Hamas, and pay much much more for Assad bullets to kill Syrians. It is very sad that IRI, Islamists (such as Mr. Sahimi) and other IRI's propagansists don't object to IRI for spending Irans money on Muslim terrorists and non-Iranian causes, instead of needy iranians.Shame on Islamist who support spreading Arab Islam, instead of medication for Iranians.

Sanctions are much bettr than a "limited" war , that IRI and  terrorist hezbolahis are hoping for. Terrorist IRI has left no other options for the civilized world.

SAVAK gave you freedom! SANCTION gives you hunger!!

You rejected the former and yearned for the latter. So, you got it!

Sanctions until IRR is gone!!

Shlomo is for SANCTIONS.

while glancing through some of the comments..

"Sanctions? why not?"

"Why can't the 30,000 plus hemophilia patients along with hundred of thousands of cancer, AIDS patients and other sick people go to streets and scream and overthrow this Iranian government?"

Meanwhile, these same commentators here are sitting in their comfortable homes and following the news on their TV!

I'm just saying,

Iraj

............

It is truly sad that innocent men, women and children are suffering due to the current government of Iran.

I am beginning to think that I will never see an end to the suffering of Iranians in my life time. I hope that it is not the case.

Sanctions Save Lives

Both in the long run and the short term, the sanctions diplomacy will save many lives. In the absence of sanctions, there will be war and destruction.

The pro-Regime crowd here, like the blogger, should stay focused on the Regime change and to bring this tragedy to a quick end, instead of re-arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

You folks are so bitter and negative!

sanctions will be lifted in less than 24 hrs IF.....

1. Stop acting like youre still fighting The Crusades! Abandon your hostile position towards Israel, and stop acting like youre Salahaddin. Palestine/Lebanon/Syria can take care of itself. You are not head/bottom of the onion!
2. Stop being at war with the world! Have normalized relations with the rest of world. Shouting Marg bar America, climbing embassy walls, calling France's first lady "a whore", and antagonizing the West etc. only shows how politically immature you are. And immature people cant be trusted with Nuclear technology. The 5th fleet is there because your neighbors are afraid of you! Dont you get it? Open your eyes: what do you see? //sonixax.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/%D9%85%D8%B1%DA%AF-%D8%A8%D8%B1-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%DA%AF%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7/ 
3. Respect the will of the International community. If the IAEA wants something, then stop acting like a spoiled kid, and work with them. Dont go around boasting on how youll shut down the Strait of Hormuz, because you will have a similar response.
4. Grow the f**k up!! If the Int'l community asks you to stop stoning Sakineh Mohammadi, dont go around threatening to hang her instead. What are you, a fu**ing 12yrd old? Do you honestly expect people to trust you with Nuclear Technology when you say such things about your own people? //www.persian.rfi.fr/%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%B4%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%82-%D8%B4%DA%A9%D9%86%D8%AC%D9%87-%D9%86%DB%8C%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%8C-%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA-20100623/%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86

The article is accurate.

The word is "substantiate" and it is not an assertion but evidence, or a real life example. And I don't understand why giving a real life example of what is going on in Iran does not bode well for the article.

And yes, the article is very accurate and tells it exactly how it is in Iran. And it is getting worse by the day here in Iran.

The sanctions have directly placed many people I know out of work, and these are ordinary Iranians that live pay check to pay check.

I hope this article is not

I hope this article is not true.  Using your relatives to sustantiate one's assertions does not bode well for this article.

All Oppression Creates a State of War--Simone De Beauvoir

Rogue regime is harming its citizens, noone else

What are the realistic alternatives of weakening this regime, if not sanctions?

I will NOT 4

The lefties might try and try to ignore evidence in black and white, but it will not go away. However, keep on truckin!

Issue of shutting up

I agree nobody should shut up but if false accusations are made that can not be backed up then that person needs to shut up, or should that person continue to make false accusations, as Fred has kept on doing?

Dr. Sahimi actually may not be too happy that I have posted his article on Iranian.com because he has pretty well much given up on Iranian.com, and if you are wondering why, Fred's comments should be enough reason.

As long as I remember, Fred has been saying,

Sanctions, sanctions, and more sanctions !!

now he is saying that he is not pushing for sanction.

then he explains that he is advocating for it not pushing for it !!   

reminds me of Clinton,

" I did not have sexual relations with that woman "

Fred are you also a lawyer?  lawyers are good at playing with the words.  

It seems that if you look at the root of the word and its definition then you see " sexual relationship " and " pushing for sanctions " have a lot in common!!   same with their denial !!

Interesting article by Dr. Sahimi

Thank you for posting it.

Nobody should "shut up". Not Fred, nor Sahimi.

It is good to have Dr. Sahimi's voice around here again, to add a different angle to Iranian.com's voices, an angle that has been missing for a while.

We readers can make up our own minds.

I will NOT 3

If you think for a second I thought someone like you would accept facts that contradicts and does not jive with his propaganda, you would be wrong.

Lefties have this problem and nothing can be done about it.

Failed Again

You attempted to back up your false accusation but failed miserably and instead of making a correction you are continuing to make insinuations that you can not back up.

But that's okay, you have embarrassed yourself enough today.

Now go try to wash that blood off.

I will NOT 2

Again, I will NOT “shut up”, so you might as well save your breath.

If you read the direct quote, especially where it says “If Iran has the ability to make the bomb on a short notice” you will see the author who has a long record of nuke advocacy and has confessed to having close relationship with the Islamist Rapists is after weaponized nuke.

Problem reading?

You obviously have a problem with the English language.

The quote does not in any way make the author an advocate of weaponization. That's your imagination.

And backbreaking airtight sanctions are not crippling sanctions?

You made a false accusation and you do need to deal with it, or at least go back to English classes. Or shut up.

"or shut up"!!!!!

Wow!

This site is begining to look like a Virtual Evin interrogation room!

What next?! 

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

I will NOT

"The crux of the issue about Iran's nuclear program is, in my opinion, as follows: If Iran has the ability to make the bomb on a short notice, it becomes unattackable. That is not something that the US and Israel can tolerate. They want to be the hegemone of the Middle East."

And NO, I will not "shut up" and NO I am not pushing for "crippling sanctions".

 I am advocating and have been doing so for many years, backbreaking airtight sanctions to prepare the Messianic Islamist Rapists ready to be overthrown by the Iranian people.

Deal with it!