Hands Off Iran: Say No To Sanctions!

Protests have erupted in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian woman who died in police custody after being detained for supposedly wearing her hijab incorrectly. Our heart goes out to those effected by such injustice.

In the wake of all this, the US has declared sanctions on Iran; fearing a Western-backed color revolution is in the works, other Iranians have been counter-protesting the protests. Whether or not the protests are astroturfed or coopted as feared, let us be unambiguous in our orientation as American anti-imperialists: imperialist intervention can do nothing but make the situation worse! Far from being a peaceful alternative to war, sanctions are an imperialist weapon as deadly as any bomb, tank, or gun. Furthermore, imperialist meddling is largely responsible for putting the current regime in power; if regime change were fomented now, it would only benefit Western imperialists at the expense of the Iranians. Amini’s death is a tragedy, but those of us in America who love peace must not allow the Biden administration to to opportunistically turn her death into a pretense for intervention. We say no to sanctions!

The Myth Of Targeted Sanctions

Western media and politicians have repeatedly assured us not to worry, that this or that sanction only targets the elites in a given country. For example, consider the recently bungled Russian sanctions: far from only effecting “Russian oligarchs,” as was promised, the actual impact of these sanctions hurt the Russian people while the oligarchs went essentially unscathed. Now those sanctions are even backfiring, hurting those of us in the West through inflation–in particular those in Europe where compounding crises have caused energy prices to soar. “Targeted sanctions” have never worked as advertised because that simply isn’t the purpose of sanctions: the real purpose of sanctions are to cause chaos and mayhem among the people, to destroy their quality of life in an attempt to foment rebellion and, ultimately, regime change. This has been admitted overtly, for example in this declassified State Department document regarding Cuban sanctions:

This time around they’re alleging that the sanctions will only target the Iranian morality police responsible for the incident. This too is a bold faced lie, one made far too soon after the Russian sanctions for it to hold any weight. There is another lie as well: the preposterous idea that the American ruling class has any concern for women’s rights.

Pink-washing Imperialism

History is repeating itself! Ever since 9/11, American politicians have repeatedly referenced Islamic misogyny as a pretense for intervention and even outright invasion in the middle east. For example, immediately following the 9/11 incident, congresswoman Carolyn Maloney infamously donned a burqa in the senate while making a statement about women’s rights in Afghanistan and implying that the Taliban needed to pay for supposedly harboring the terrorists responsible for the tragedy.

These performative acts of alleged women’s solidarity has always been a shallow effort to build public support for imperialist interventions. Not once has such an intervention improved women’s rights, human rights, or democracy; not once has these concerns been authentic. A decade after representative Maloney’s dramatic gesture, we were still at war in Afghanistan; it was during this time that a CIA report released by WikiLeaks in 2010 revealed this quite overtly. The report, titled “Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough” had this to say about women’s rights in Afghanistan:

Appeals by President Obama and Afghan Women Might Gain Traction…

Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF role in combating
the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally and credibly about their
experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban
victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share
their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome
pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission…

Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most
effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female
audiences.

https://wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_report_into_shoring_up_Afghan_war_support_in_Western_Europe,_11_Mar_2010

When president Biden finally made the decision to pull out of Afghanistan in 2021, a new surge of concerns over women’s rights in Afghanistan re-emerged. In the midst of attacks on women’s rights here at home, such as the over-turning of Roe v Wade, the American ruling class has absolutely no leg to stand on when it comes to women’s rights. They do not care about women’s rights here at home, so why would they care about them elsewhere?