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“The crisis has taken a toll on medical care, affecting the middle class as well as the poor. Because of the ever-tighter pressure on any kind of trade with Iran, the black market price of Herceptin, a breast cancer drug, has nearly doubled in the past year, said Lian, a young nurse who works in the cancer ward of one of Tehran’s major hospitals (the government regulates the mainstream supply of such drugs, but supplies are very limited). The sanctions have also affected medical technology, because radiology machines fall under the “dual use” provisions of laws aimed at keeping nuclear technology out of Iran. At Shohada Hospital, one of the country’s premier institutions, about 1,200 cancer patients a year go without radiological treatment, because the radiology equipment is no longer working and replacement parts cannot be brought into Iran, said Pejman Razavi, a doctor at the hospital. Many Iranians are also skeptical about the Western preoccupation with Iran’s nuclear program. “The economic pressure will not push Iran to a nuclear settlement,” said Kayhan Barzegar, the director of the Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies, who has taught in the United States. “The nuclear file is a nationalistic issue; it’s too late for Iran to backtrack. Domestic politics will react negatively to any negotiation — candidates in the elections will say: you sold the nuclear program!”………….”

It is truly killing by diplomatic means. What these Iranians don’t seem to understand is that the sanctions are not really aimed at their nuclear program. In the media-controlled sound-bite and video-clip politics of America these days, it is the perception that matters more than anything else. The main goal of the sanctions, ever tightening, is primarily to influence the perception of the American voters, to out-hawk the Republicans, usually mostly war evaders. Otherwise all this weekly, almost daily, recalibration of the Western blockade (never sanctioned by the United Nations) wouldn’t make any sense. Sanctions are usually put in place and monitored. These Iran sanctions, sharply and skeptically supervised by the Likud regime and its allies and agents in the United States, are meant to be kept in the headlines. It is tempting to say that every time Mr. Netanyahu clears his throat, a panicked Obama administration tightens the Iran sanctions some more.
Almost everything is choreographed for maximum public effect: from Susan Rice’s hissy fit and selective “disgusting” remark at the UN to Hillary Clinton’s selective “I am deeply troubled” comments. In This Election Year of Our Lord of 2012.
Cheers
mhg


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