Sanctions Quotes

“We're not afraid of sanctions. We're not afraid of military invasion. What frightens us is the invasion of western immorality.”
― Ruhollah Khomeini

“Where there is commerce there is peace.”
― Jeffrey Tucker

“Whether for good or for bad, the Iran that ultimately rises out of the ashes of last summer's uprising will be unlike the Iran we know today, and for that we can thank the Green Movement, not another round of useless sanctions.”
― Reza Aslan

“Rolf Ekeus came round to my apartment one day and showed me the name of the Iraqi diplomat who had visited the little West African country of Niger: a statelet famous only for its production of yellowcake uranium. The name was Wissam Zahawi. He was the brother of my louche gay part-Kurdish friend, the by-now late Mazen. He was also, or had been at the time of his trip to Niger, Saddam Hussein's ambassador to the Vatican. I expressed incomprehension. What was an envoy to the Holy See doing in Niger? Obviously he was not taking a vacation. Rolf then explained two things to me. The first was that Wissam Zahawi had, when Rolf was at the United Nations, been one of Saddam Hussein's chief envoys for discussions on nuclear matters (this at a time when the Iraqis had functioning reactors). The second was that, during the period of sanctions that followed the Kuwait war, no Western European country had full diplomatic relations with Baghdad. TheVatican was the sole exception, so it was sent a very senior Iraqi envoy to act as a listening post. And this man, a specialist in nuclear matters, had made a discreet side trip to Niger. This was to suggest exactly what most right-thinking people were convinced was not the case: namely that British intelligence was on to something when it said that Saddam had not ceased seeking nuclear materials in Africa.

I published a few columns on this, drawing at one point an angry email from Ambassador Zahawi that very satisfyingly blustered and bluffed on what he'd really been up to. I also received—this is what sometimes makes journalism worthwhile—a letter from a BBC correspondent named Gordon Correa who had been writing a book about A.Q. Khan. This was the Pakistani proprietor of the nuclear black market that had supplied fissile material to Libya, North Korea, very probably to Syria, and was open for business with any member of the 'rogue states' club. (Saddam's people, we already knew for sure, had been meeting North Korean missile salesmen in Damascus until just before the invasion, when Kim Jong Il's mercenary bargainers took fright and went home.) It turned out, said the highly interested Mr. Correa, that his man Khan had also been in Niger, and at about the same time that Zahawi had. The likelihood of the senior Iraqi diplomat in Europe and the senior Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer both choosing an off-season holiday in chic little uranium-rich Niger… well, you have to admit that it makes an affecting picture. But you must be ready to credit something as ridiculous as that if your touching belief is that Saddam Hussein was already 'contained,' and that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were acting on panic reports, fabricated in turn by self-interested provocateurs.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Badger had been waiting with ever increasing certainty for that brown, government stamped envelope, to hit the floor with the impact of several atomic bombs; the shockwaves hitting him before the sound could penetrate his ears.”
― Paul Howsley, The Year of the Badgers

“On January 17, 1991 and for the 43 days that followed, I watched CNN’s live coverage of SCUD missiles and bombs fall over Baghdad like rain; then the 12 ½ years of unjust sanctions that killed approximately a million Iraqis, half of which were children under the age of five; then an unjust attack in 2003 that opened the borders to terrorists from all over the world and reduced the cradle of civilization to piles of rubble. The gov. asked us to support their plan or else be considered anti-American and undemocratic and they ask of us the same today, 25 years later, even though history proved they were pro-profit not pro-life.”
― Weam Namou, The Great American Family

“Philip Conwell-Evans, who three years earlier had witnessed the book burning at Königsberg University with such equanimity. Choosing to operate discretely behind the scenes, Conwell-Evans had been instrumental in bringing together a number of influential British figures with leading Nazis. It was he, for instance who in December 1934, had been the driving force behind the first major dinner party Hitler ever hosted for foreigners and at which Lord Rothermere had been guest of honour. And it was now Conwell-Evans, in harness with his close friend Ribbentrop, who was masterminding the Lloyd-George expedition. 'He is so blind to the blemishes of the Germans,' Dr Jones wrote of his fellow Welshman in his diary,' as to make one see the virtues of the French.”
― Julia Boyd, Travellers in the Third Reich

“The policy debate about sanctions has been repeated almost every decade since the [League of Nations] was created in the wake of World War I. At its core has been the perennial question: do economic sanctions work? While the success rate differs depending on the objective, the historical record is relatively clear: most economic sanctions have not worked. In the twentieth century, only one in three uses of sanctions was “at least partially successful.” More modest goals have better chances of success. But from the available data it is clear that the history of sanctions is largely a history of disappointment.

What is striking is that this limited utility has not affected frequency of use. To the contrary: sanctions use doubled in the 1990s and 2000s compared to the period from 1950 to 1985; by the 2010s it had doubled again. Yet while in the 1985–1995 period, at a moment of great relative Western power, the chances of sanctions success were still around 35–40 percent, by 2016 this had fallen below 20 percent. In other words, while the use of sanctions has surged, their odds of success have plummeted.”
― Nicholas Mulder , The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

“Без СВИФТА нет Гулливера.”
― Евгений Гендин

“People usually ask for sanctions against Saudi Arabia or Russia as long as the pump price for gasoline does not jump.”
― Jean Michel Rene Souche, Knife Paintings: Lozengist Movement

“The current system has crashed and is now obsolete. Only a new system can solve today's global problems. Hence the rise of Tomorrow's World Order.”
― David Gomadza, Tomorrow's World Order

“Sanctions levied
Sanctions heavy
Break my back
But you will not end me

Many have assailed
Many have failed
Pack after pack
Blood shed but to no avail

Had my share of years
Had my share of tears
SAVAK to crack
A century of polluted atmosphere

This is my land
This is my clan
Turn the clock back
I'm as old as the history of man

Gone are the golden days
Gone are the golden ways
Stopped in my tracks
Time will lead me out of this maze

Keep my people in pain
Keep my people in chains
Wrapped in my flag
The end welcomes tyranny's campaign

Levy your sanctions
Heavy my reaction
From The Burnt City to Ganzak
I, Simurgh, will rise from the ashes

History will go round
History will go down
Evil, domestic and foreign
Will burn to the ground

Time bears witness
Time bears justice
Our mystic misfortune
A lingering dark nimbus

Rise up my wings
Rise up my kings
This majestic sovereign
Will be reborn once again”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Letter 19

“Sanctions levied
Sanctions heavy
Break my back
But you will not end me

Many have assailed

Many have failed
Pack after pack
Blood shed but to no avail

Had my share of years
Had my share of tears
SAVAK to crack
A century of polluted atmosphere

This is my land
This is my clan
Turn the clock back
I'm as old as the history of man

Gone are the golden days
Gone are the golden ways
Stopped in my tracks
Time will lead me out of this maze

Keep my people in pain
Keep my people in chains
Wrapped in my flag
The end welcomes tyranny's campaign

Levy your sanctions
Heavy my reaction
From The Burnt City to Ganzak
I, Simurgh, will rise from the ashes

History will go round
History will go down
Evil, domestic and foreign
Will burn to the ground

Time bears witness
Time bears justice
Our mystic misfortune
A lingering dark nimbus

Rise up my wings
Rise up my kings
This majestic sovereign
Will be reborn once again”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Letter 19

“Sanctions levied
Sanctions heavy
Break my back
But you will not end me

Many have assailed

Many have failed
Pack after pack
Blood shed but to no avail

Had my share of years
Had my share of tears
SAVAK to crack
A century of polluted atmosphere

This is my land
This is my clan
Turn the clock back
I'm as old as the history of man

Gone are the golden days
Gone are the golden ways
Stopped in my tracks
Time will lead me out of this maze

Keep my people in pain
Keep my people in chains
Wrapped in my flag
The end welcomes tyranny's campaign

Levy your sanctions
Heavy my reaction
From The Burnt City to Ganzak
I, Simurgh, will rise from the ashes

History will go round
History will go down
Evil, domestic and foreign
Will burn to the ground

Time bears witness
Time bears justice
Our mystic misfortune
A lingering dark nimbus

Rise up my wings
Rise up my kings
This majestic sovereign
Will be reborn once again”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Letter 19

“And as to ordinary metaphors, or those which have already received the public sanction, and which are commonly very numerous in every tongue, the metaphorical meaning comes to be as really ascertained by custom in the particular language as the original, or what is called the literal meaning of the word. And in this respect metaphors stand on the same foot of general use with proper terms.”
― George Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric

“Rather than considering the Iraqi regime solely responsible for these sanctions, many exiled and displaced academics believe that the UN bears the main ethical and human responsibility for the damage the embargo caused for Iraqi people and society. Many academics saw these sanctions as the UN’s method to obtain the consent of Iraqi people to the 2003 occupation through starving and weakening the people, as well as destroying Iraq’s strong institutions and infrastructure.”
― Louis Yako, Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile

“Sanctions haven't stopped the killings. They've only made the invaders more desperate to win.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“You do know that I have an Iranian passport and from the looks of things, we aren’t welcome in a lot of places in the world.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish