Was she calling for sanctions against any states that wage perpetual war against their neighbors, or fund terrorists? Of course not.
But Israel?
Ilhan Omar is all about putting the screws to the one country in the Near East that allows the full political participation and due process of minorities, women, and anyone in the left’s beloved LBGTQ movement.
She wrote a piece for Washington Post, the newspaper where, they assure us, ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’.
The humanitarian crisis created by our sanctions in Iran is unconscionable.
Ordinary Iranians bear the brunt and more than 3 million people are unemployed.
This is why we shouldn’t rush into sanctioning countries.
https://t.co/nGoqdMXtD8— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) October 29, 2019
Ignoring what we know about Iran’s ability to fund terrorists drying up (notice the NYTimes citation)…
“The golden days are gone and will never return. Iran doesn’t have enough money to give us.” — A militant with an Iranian-backed militia in Syria, New York Times, March 26, 2019.
Feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle.”
Iran’s national currency, the rial, has dropped to historic lows — one US dollar, which equaled approximately 35,000 rials in November of 2017, now buys you nearly 130,000 rials.
Source: Gatestone
Ignoring that, she lays out a complaint for why we are actually wrong to do so.
This is an unmistakable echo of the failed U.S. strategy of “maximum pressure” on Iran and Venezuela. And just as with those two countries, it would be a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster.
In so much of our foreign policy, we rely on muscle memory and a limited toolbox to decide the best course of action. And, too often, sanctions regimes are ill considered, incoherent and counterproductive.
Research has shown that sanctions rarely achieve their desired goals. In the worst-case scenario, they hurt the people of a country — generally the very people we’re purporting to help — without making a dent in the country’s behavior. And in the case of human rights abusers, research suggests that more abuses typically occur with economic sanctions in place than without them.
You mean ‘desired goals’ like reducing the reach of regional terrorism? Maybe we should go back to the Obama days of canceling Project Cassandra in which Hezbollah could grow, unimpeded, into a fully-fledged international crime cartel?
Oh right, we all remember how she giggles with something resembling delight when she utters the name Hezbollah, don’t we?
She went on…
We had a full embargo on Cuba for decades, with little effect on the Cuban government but much pain inflicted on ordinary Cubans. It was only through diplomacy and direct conversation that President Barack Obama and the United States made progress in Cuba.
The same strategies should be applied to Syria. We could have negotiated a buffer zone in northern Syria, so that people outside of the Assad regime’s control could create a peaceful life, without our greenlighting the slaughter of innocent Kurdish lives.
Ah, yes. That ‘winning’ strategy with Cuba who — together with Russia — is propping up Venezuela’s rogue ‘leader’.
Note that her op-ed in WaPo on October 23 preceded a vote on sanctions against Turkey — led by Recep Erdogan, whose party has Islamist roots — on Tuesday which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. The vote was 403-15, with Omar the lone Democrat opposing the resolution. What a weird coincidence!
Was there a list of any sanctions that she liked? Of course there was:
This is not a catch-all criticism of sanctions. The use of the Global Magnitsky Act, aimed at specific individuals responsible for gross human rights violations, can be an important mechanism for accountability if they are used consistently and not simply for our geopolitical rivals. And locally led boycott or divestment campaigns, such as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, can be meaningful ways for those impacted to seek a peaceful resolution.
Source: WaPo
Was that a reference to locally-led ‘Boycott Divestment and SANCTION’ of Israel campaigns which your team characterizes as an anti-apartheid nation??
Why would she ever pass up a chance to play that ‘evil Israel’ card?
But naming it directly might have been a little too ‘on the nose’, right?
Related stories…
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