Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1026996595-scaled

Top officials in Iran laugh at U.S. sanctions while the people suffer

There is a growing number of nationalist, anti-government independents in Iran who refuse to affiliate with either reformists or hardliners and the U.S. 'maximum pressure' campaign isn't helping them.

Analysis | Reporting | Middle East

New U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran have become so recurrent nowadays that they’ve become a joke, even among hardline clerics.

Soon after Brian Hook, the State Department's special representative for Iran, announced that five members of the government’s Guardian Council were to be blacklisted ahead of the country's parliamentary elections last Friday, the Council's chief Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, whipped back: “They sanctioned me and I am wondering how I can access all my money in those American banks now?” he told reporters with a chuckle at a press conference in Tehran. “How can I go there for Christmas?”

A video clip of his response quickly trended across social media. To be clear, Jannati is a conservative hardliner whose views are by no means an accurate measure of public opinion. But his fiercely nationalistic and defiantly resistant tone resonated with millions of Iranians.

Pooria Asteraky, a digital marketing consultant and election volunteer in Tehran, laughs over Jannati’s comments. “Practically, what does it mean that Trump is sanctioning a Guardian Council member?” he asks. “Sanctioning is an act against the whole country. It doesn’t matter if it's directed against one person, because that person doesn't have a particular interest against the U.S. He [Trump] is hurting all Iranians.”

Asteraky holds that his political views are in a different category from officials on The Guardian Council, an un-elected 12-person board of experts in constitutional and Islamic law who this year disqualified 7,296 of 15,000 people who applied to run for parliament largely because of their moderate or reformist mindset. “On internal policy, I disagree with them on many things,” he says. “I’m mostly close to the reformists in my political views.”

But at the same time, the declaration of additional sanctions runs deep. “I don’t translate it to anything other than declaring war on Iran’s democracy," Asteraky says. "I don’t think we have the most perfect democracy in the world, but we do have a voting system, an elected parliament, an elected government and a democratically elected mayor. It’s a democracy that millions of people trust and attended and voted — and that’s after 40 years of revolution.”

“If the democracy has a problem, it doesn’t concern Trump,” he adds. “It’s our democracy, our country, our problem.”

This nationalist, but anti-government sentiment aligns with what some political observers are noting as an interesting emergence in Iran: Independents who refuse to affiliate with either political bloc. “These edalat khwahs [Justice Seekers] are young, dynamic people, many of whom are pro-revolution and nationalistic but do not buy into the dichotomy of reformist and liberals and hardliners/conservatives,” says Kaneez Fatima, a journalist who used to live in Tehran. “They have based their political platform on wanting a justice-based society far removed from scoring political points, and that is something that has resonated with many Iranians who are slowly taking notice.”

While these self-professed edalat khwahs are not a new emergence, they could end up posing a serious threat to hardline politicians. Iranian journalist Rohollah Faghihi reports that two years ago the group wrote a letter challenging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to appear at the University of Tehran to answer students’ questions about institutions under his supervision, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and state TV, and to discuss the “performance of the Islamic Republic for the past 40 years.” More recently, these activists openly criticized Tehran for branding fuel price protesters in November as “vandals” and called for them to reveal the “disastrous” death toll from the protests. These actions are particularly notable because they are rioting against those who raised them — “the Godfathers of the conservativism camp,” says Faghih.

It is exactly these types of internal criticisms laced with nationalism and resistance that are critical for foreign governments like the U.S. to recognize and appreciate — but at the same time, to stay clear of leveraging for their own interests.

The Trump administration, of course, has chosen to do exactly the opposite. Each and every angry protest in Iran is closely monitored and exploited, whether it be through shrewd tweets from the U.S State Department account sympathizing with Iranian women’s rights activists, to cozying up with the MEK, a controversial Iranian dissident group whose singular goal is to overthrow Iran’s government through war. Some Canadian and British MPs have also taken the same approach.

While government officials have been impacted, it is more the Iranian people that have suffered immeasurably through decades of U.S. imposed sanctions. The International Monetary Fund estimates Iran's economy to have shrunk by 9.5 percent in 2019, nearly double the 4.8 percent contraction already experienced in 2018. The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook report shows the country will experience zero percent economic growth in 2020.

And with Washington threatening to punish any private companies or banks that work with Iran, life-saving medicines have been prevented from getting in. Now, with the added threat of the coronavirus — which has already killed 26 Iranians — Human Rights Watch warns that Iran will be unable to contain its spread and reduce its ability to mobilize international support.

It’s well past time to evaluate the utility of these broad-based sanctions on Iran that only end up hurting the Iranian people while entrenching the power of those already running a corrupt system. While top officials laugh off U.S. penalties, the suffering of 82 million people continues, and their anger is palpable. Political reform is desperately needed; it should come, but only from within will it carry the legitimacy needed for the best chance to succeed.


Analysis | Reporting | Middle East
israel gaza ceasefire
Top photo credit: A man, wearing shirt in the colours of the U.S. flag, and a woman, wearing an Israeli flag across her shoulders, celebrate after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, at the "Hostages square", in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Trump Gaza Deal will work: If he keeps pressure on Israel

Middle East

Reports today indicate that both the Israelis and Hamas have agreed on a deal that would call for an immediate cessation of fighting and return of hostages and prisoners on both sides in a first phase.

Both parties are expected to sign the agreement and the Israeli cabinet will vote to approve it afterwards. The deal would supposedly see a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the ground in order for the hostage-prisoner swaps to proceed, but the thornier issues of Hamas disarmament, governance, full Israeli withdrawal and a complete end to the war have been left to hammer out in later phases.

keep readingShow less
Sanctions are strangling Syria’s new economy
A building destroyed by fighting near the al-Madina Souq in Aleppo, Syria. (Connor Echols/Responsible Statecraft)

Sanctions are strangling Syria’s new economy

Middle East

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The Old City of Damascus is teeming with life. On any given night, one can find thousands of Syrians strolling through streets lined with endless shops. People stream in and out of restaurants situated in ornate Ottoman-era courtyards, where diners hang out around elegant, black-and-white stone fountains until the early hours of the morning.

But a short walk east reveals a ghost town. The neighborhood of Jobar, a former rebel stronghold with a prewar population of 300,000, has been reduced to a maze of crumbling apartment buildings and mangled cars. “When I was [in Syria] in January, I was shocked at the level of destruction,” said Robert Ford, who served as U.S. ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014 and has visited the country several times in recent years. “It looked like films I'd seen of cities in World War Two.”

keep readingShow less
Sanae Takaichi, Xi Jinping
Top photo credit: Japan’s LDP leader Sanae Takaichi (Govt. of Japan) Chinese President Xi Jinping Alan Santos/PR/Roman Kubanskiy (Wikimedia Commons)

First female Japan PM takes hawkish position on China, Taiwan

Asia-Pacific

On October 4, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan chose Sanae Takaichi — who is expected to reflect a more determined stand in defense of Taiwan — as its president, and the Diet is expected to elect her as prime minister next Wednesday.

(Editor's note, 10/10: The Kōmeitō’s departure from its 26-year coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) reported today has complicated Takaichi’s path to the prime ministership and delayed the Diet vote on who will lead Japan.)

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.