“Sanctions are instruments of power in the world market. They do not fall on states as such; they are transmitted through prices, access to credit, logistics, and insurance , ending up as lower real wages and higher reproduction costs for the popular classes. In this sense, snapback is a coercive economic act that subordinates a semi-peripheral economy to the security priorities of the core. It invites us to ask: who pays, who decides, and who benefits? “Iran’s claim to sovereign control over peaceful nuclear technology is legitimate. The selective use of international law by powerful states is obvious: their allies’ arsenals are tolerated; their adversaries face blockade. The E3’s language of “non-performance” and the U.S. call for compliance reflect this asymmetry of force —and this is why many inside and outside Iran see the move as imperial overreach , not neutral rule-enforcement. “ Sanctions are cl...
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51