Sanctions, Politics, Media and Home

We have been learning and seeing for ourselves that the sanctions, which were placed on Iran in 2005, again do more harm to ordinary people and have little consequence for the rulers. Iran has oil, but it doesn’t have refining plants, so it has to import and ration gas. Other building materials are in short supply, and half-built but stalled-looking construction projects are everywhere. According to UN officials, the people are deficient in iron and vitamin B12. Quality medicine and study materials for many professions are hard to get. These have pretty immediate consequences for young people, families, and seniors.

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I have come to realize more deeply also that people simply do not gravitate towards democracy when under threat. Just look at us and how we responded after 9/11, how early we gave up on having dialogue and how freely most of us gave up many civil liberties. No, being under threat of attack or harm does not encourage people to sit around and talk through the options; rather, people too quickly line up behind the person who seems most capable of launching an effective defense, even if they’re a yahoo. Shoot first and ask questions later. We can discuss during the aftermath. So, after this experience and the many experiences which have preceded it, I believe that we cannot criticize Iran any more than our own selves. They’re thinking, “we need to protect ourselves. There’s this crazy country out there with a huge weapons stash and military and they like to bomb other people.” But it is crazy for us to consider bombing and shortchange diplomacy. As we’ve seen with Iraq—everyone loses.

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It’s amazing that sitting in the middle of the desert, in the oasis of Yazd, I can be typing this and watching scenes from Iowa in advance of the primaries and caucuses and seeing CNN speculate on how the people of my homeland will respond. And then in the next moment, there are pictures of Ahmedinijad and questions again of how people here will act. And I really don’t know. I know that I believe people in Iowa are less right-wing fundamentalist than they are made to appear. And I believe the same of the people we have met in all the places here.

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It is hard not to have affection for a place, even if it’s not an uncritical affection. To love my own country, after all, is not to agree completely with all its policies or practices or feign ignorance to the problems these decisions cause. I find Iranians are much the same. They express their differences of opinion fairly freely, but still love their country and don’t wish to be attacked.