The Effects of The Economic Sanctions Against Iran
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A thirty-one year-old male who works as a salesman at a bookstore in Tehran describes the current conditions (to which the economic sanctions have contributed) as follows:
_The conditions of these days for me are as follows: medicines are rare, food costs an arm and a leg, unemployment is widespread, the cutting of the subsidies will continue till doomsday, smugglers are sheltered, mediators and dealers are getting fatter and fatter, boss-men and chief-executives are busy with looting, and profiteers from the sanctions are getting richer and richer every day while the rest of us suffer _
The US-European sanctions against Iran have assisted the Iranian state in positing itself as an anti-imperialist entity, resisting the unjust global relations, while simultaneously being part of the same global relations in regulating anti-working class economic policies, receiving praises from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, and deepening class divisions in Iran.
The notion of foreign intervention, i.e. the economic sanctions and the threats of war against Iran, has assisted the government to articulate a discourse of national reconciliation without enacting any meaningful recognition of alternative political voices and demands.
The threats of war and deteriorating living conditions, due to economic sanctions, have marginalized the voices that demand structural econo-political changes and reform of laws. It is impossible to lead a good life under the economic sanctions, hence the state does not need to negotiate with political dissidents or recognize their citizen rights and a political space for political dissidence. Rather, it needs only to refer to the imposed economic sanctions and threats of war to solidify its discourse of national reconciliation and the necessity for the political activists to postpone their criticism of domestic affairs.