The Big Lie About Broad Sanctions

Sanctions advocates need the rest of us to accept that some important end justifies their horrible means, but it wouldn’t do that even if broad sanctions achieved something.

Bobby Ghosh is very worried that there might be sanctions relief for Syria:

Can the West hold the line when the Arab states have dropped it? Calls for Washington to go along with Syria’s readmission to the League are inevitable: If those who were once the most ardent supporters of sanctions have changed their minds, then why not drop them?

This would not only represent a betrayal of principles — the Biden administration is no stranger to that practice — it would neuter the principal non-kinetic weapon the West can use against tyrants everywhere. Sanctions may be slow to work, but they do serve as shackles…

The big lie about broad sanctions is that they are a weapon used against tyrants rather than a devastating attack on the people that live under the tyrants’ rule. It is a comforting lie that sanctions advocates tell themselves and the rest of us, because when we acknowledge what broad sanctions really do it becomes very difficult to rationalize their use. When a policy starves and impoverishes millions of people while leaving the tyrant and his henchmen largely unscathed, it is not putting shackles on the latter. It is, however, crushing the people under a heavy burden that your policy placed on their backs. Sanctions advocates need the rest of us to accept that some important end justifies their horrible means, but it wouldn’t do that even if broad sanctions achieved something.

Sanctions advocates sometimes liken broad sanctions to harsh medical treatment. They may admit that the sanctions have harmful effects, but they say that this is only so that the “cancer” (i.e., the regime) can be weakened and possibly eliminated. In practice, the supposed treatment of sanctions causes the disease to get worse and makes the patient even sicker.