US sanctions aimed to hurt Iranian people

By Stephen Lendman

Since Iran's 1979 revolution that ended a generation of US-installed fascist tyranny, the US has thrown everything at Iran conceivable short of all-out war.

It threw a proxy war against Iran in the 1980s with Iraq. This went on for the better part of the decade - about 8 years. Over the years, over about 41 years, the US has sanctioned Iran many, many times. All US sanctions are illegal.

Only the Security Council may impose sanctions on nations, not individual countries against any other. I've explained this many times in my writing. This is right in the UN Charter, so it's nothing I'm making up. It's not even a separate international law. Well, there is international law on this, but it's right in the US Charter which is about as basic as anything can be international law wise.

The Trump regime has upped the ante considerably over what was done to Iran over the previous years. So over the past three years plus three and a half years, Trump has thrown everything at Iran. Number one, breaching the JCPOA adopted by the Security Council, making it binding international law. So, the US breached the law. France, Germany, and Britain also breached the Security Council resolution meeting international law, which President Ruhani emphasized in a comment I believe yesterday saying they breached the law. They did not fulfill your obligations under the JCPOA. If they continue on this path the JCPOA can't survive.

Whether things will change when Biden, who will probably defeat Trump in November, no guarantee, but it certainly looks that way now. Maybe things might have a chance to change a bit if he becomes president in 2021. We'll have to wait and see on that.

But, Iran has become more self-sufficient because of everything the US has thrown at the country and its people.

And I would want to emphasize one more thing. The sanctions against Iran mainly aimed to hurt the Iranian people. That's what they're mainly all about. That's the main thing that he was trying to do falsely believing that if the people of Iran, or any other country that the US sanctions, if they suffer enough, they will rise up against the ruling authorities and they'll want the government toppled to do the US job for it.

It never has worked. Decades of US sanctions on Iran, on Cuba, Russia, China, North Korea, usually the result of these sanctions are the people of these countries rally around their government more strongly than they did before.

And the reason is simple because the only people they have to look after their interest and welfare is their own government. Certainly no foreign government, no foreign government pays any attention to the people of some other country. Most foreign governments don't take care of the people of their own countries. Certainly, the US does not do it. Other Western countries do not do it.

So in the case of Iran, the Iranian people are rallying around their government to oppose the US actions against the country, and this has gone on all these decades. You would think the US after all these years would have learned the lesson. As a matter of fact, against Cuba this has gone on for over 60 years, in vain. Has the US learned the lesson? No. It repeats the same mistakes over and over again, getting the same results. And I believe it was Einstein who said. That's a good definition of insanity.

Well, it doesn't really matter what the US does to Iran or any of the countries on its target list for regime change. These countries are standing firm. The US is growing weaker over time. It is a declining power. Other nations are rising - Russia, China, Iran, many other nations. They are rising because they believe in cooperative relations with other countries.

The US wants other nations to smash the ones who do not abandon their own interest in service to US interests. That's the bottom line for the US: ‘Either obey us, or we will sanction you to death.’ And many times wage a war against them.

US policies have achieved nothing. All US wars have not been won in the post World War Two era. All US wars by other means - sanctions and other hostile actions show the war has failed. The US is failing. One day, the US will go the way of all other empires in history, in the dustbin, in history's dustbin where it belongs. That's where it's heading. That's the trend. That's the way it'll end up.

Stephen Lendman, born in 1934 in Boston, started writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient. He recorded this article for Press TV website.