{"id":375620,"date":"2018-08-31T19:16:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T18:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-trump-administrations-cruel-collective-punishment-of-the-iranian-people\/"},"modified":"2018-08-31T19:16:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T18:16:47","slug":"the-trump-administrations-cruel-collective-punishment-of-the-iranian-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-trump-administrations-cruel-collective-punishment-of-the-iranian-people\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump Administration’s Cruel Collective Punishment of the Iranian\u00a0People"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Originally appeared on The American Conservative<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

USA Today<\/em> published<\/a> a very extensive report on conditions inside Iran this week. Here is a description of the response to the reimposition of U.S. sanctions:<\/p>\n

Still, despite rhetoric from the Trump administration and some exiled Iranians \u2013 as well as praise for Washington\u2019s withdrawal from the nuclear deal by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u2013 the overwhelming sentiment on Iran\u2019s streets is not revolutionary fervor but fatigue over decades of failed Iranian-U.S. diplomacy and the resulting economic struggles for ordinary Iranians<\/strong> [bold mine-DL]. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cWe waited for so long for good news between our two nations,\u201d a woman, 37, in a coffee shop told USA TODAY as she despaired over the renewed sanctions and breakdown in relations. <\/i><\/p>\n

The Trump administration doesn\u2019t appreciate and certainly doesn\u2019t care that reneging on the nuclear deal and moving to strangle Iran\u2019s economy have dashed the hopes of most Iranians for a better future. Iran hawks hope to rile up the Iranian people through increased hardship and deprivation, but no nation ever responds to collective punishment this way. US policy towards Iran is sowing enmity between our two countries for years and decades to come, and both of our countries will be worse off because of it. For all of the administration\u2019s complaints about Iran\u2019s \u201cmalign behavior\u201d in the region, they have made a point of penalizing Iran even though it is abiding by the nuclear deal. Iran has responded constructively on the nuclear issue, and it is being strangled with sanctions anyway.<\/p>\n

It will come as no surprise that Iranians don\u2019t want the US meddling in their politics:<\/p>\n

Although demonstrators in Iran may be occasionally emboldened to call for the death of Rouhani and Khamenei, they do not necessarily view support from Trump administration regime-change hawks such as national security adviser John Bolton as the answer. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cJust look at our neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan. After 6 p.m., you can\u2019t go out. It\u2019s too dangerous. This is what happens when Americans intervene in other countries,\u201d said Mohammad, a merchant at Tehran\u2019s Grand Bazaar, referring to two countries where the United States has spent billions of dollars on military occupations and long-term nation-building missions. \u201cThe reality is that we don\u2019t want the US interfering with our problems.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

Most Iranians can see very clearly from our government\u2019s track record that our interference tends to make other countries\u2019 problems worse. They understandably want none of that for their own country. Our meddling is destructive and therefore it is naturally unwelcome. <\/p>\n

The deleterious effects of sanctions are already being felt by ordinary Iranians:<\/p>\n

Inside Iran, there is a mixture of anger and weariness at Trump\u2019s decision to reimpose sanctions. Though Washington insists the sanctions are not aimed at Iran\u2019s civilians, only its government and nuclear program,…<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally appeared on The American Conservative. USA Today published a very extensive report on conditions inside Iran this week. Here is a description of the response to the reimposition of U.S. sanctions: Still, despite rhetoric from the Trump administration and some exiled Iranians \u2013 as well as praise for Washington\u2019s withdrawal from the nuclear deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-375620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}