Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP
We’ve talked so often about the practice of granting anonymity to U.S. officials that it’s hard to be surprised by it. Nonetheless, I was surprised to be reassured in the Washington Post (1/20/13) that the U.S.-led sanctions on Iran aren’t really harming ordinary Iranians–based on the word of an anonymous U.S. official.
The piece by Joby Warrick is mostly about new efforts to make the sanctions tougher:
The law, part of a package of sanctions approved last year, requires that foreign governments keep any payments for Iranian oil locked up inside bank accounts in their own territory. Iran can use the money only to buy goods from the local economy, such as wheat or medicine or consumer goods.
“Some critics say the sanctions are primarily harming ordinary Iranians while failing to change the behavior of Iran’s ruling clerics,” Warrick reports. And that’s not really true– because an anonymous U.S. officials says so:
While acknowledging that sanctions may have created hardships for some, administration officials and independent analysts say Tehran has exaggerated stories suggesting that Iran’s poor are doing without food or medical treatment because of sanctions. They note that Iran produces most of its own pharmaceuticals, and in any case it now has increased incentives to obtain food and medical staples in trades with oil customers.
“We’re not targeting medicine or medical devices,” said a senior administration official, insisting on anonymity in discussing diplomatically sensitive provisions of the law. “The larger problem Iran is having is the result of mismanagement on its own part.”
Well, that’s good to know. But if it’s true, why wouldn’t a U.S. official want to say so with his/her name next to that statement?
There’s actually a lot of evidence that Iran is suffering due to medical and pharmaceutical shortages– see Muhammad Sahimi’s piece at Antiwar.com (8/9/12). And there’s plenty of evidence that Iran’s economy–and thus its ordinary people–are bearing the brunt of the sanctions policy (which is, to some, the whole point; Times columnist Nick Kristof supports the sanctions because they cause suffering).
Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald had a piece last October rounding up some of the reporting on the effects of the sanctions on Iranian life; if the Post‘s new story is correct, the outlets Greenwald cited, such as the Economist, are falling for Tehran’s exaggerations.
The anonymous claim seems more a misdirection than anything else; sanctions are intended to create pain in the Iranian economy, which will predictably and inevitably cause health and food concerns, as the AP reported (1/8/13):
While medicine and humanitarian supplies are not blocked by the economic embargoes on Iran, the pressures are clearly evident in nearly every level of Iranian health care. It’s a sign of the domino effect of sanctions on everyday life.
Restrictions on Iran’s access to international banking networks mean major obstacles to pay for imported medicine and equipment–the same troubles facing many businesses in need of shipments from abroad.
Meanwhile, the nation’s slumping currency–seen as collateral damage from sanctions–has driven up prices sharply. An imported wheelchair now costs 10 times more than last fall. A blood-sugar test kit has more than doubled to 540,000 rials, or about $18.
So why is the Post granting anonymity to a U.S. official to tell us that no, this isn’t really what’s happening in Iran?
The articles are not to help the discussion, or to clear up the situation or even actually start a discussion. As always the articles are there to confuse, obfuscate, and cloud the issue so the media moguls can reap the benefits and control the whole situation.
Once we look at it in the proper light, we see that. The people who the commercial media like the NYT, NYP, LAT, and so on need to be removed, forcefully with a entire troop of policeman (not a mob) if needed, and jailed on aiding and abetting the enemy in the name of the Great God Green Back. Then the next person in line given the edict of “straighten up and fly right or your next”. If they fail to do so within a few months, then we remove them and go the next person. And we repeat it until we either get down to real reporters, reporting real news, as accurately as possible, or we empty the Corp-Press and start over.
Nothing else is going to work, because the people at the top have become to complacent and really believe they are better then the rest of the people in world, and they deserve everything they want, when the want it, whenever; Just like the spoiled-rotten, little bastards that we let them become. Maybe a couple of years of actually having to work for their bread, and having to stand in line for their soap will take the shellac and shine off their bankrupt moral ‘tudes.
Just wondering where ‘RAPE’ category is, was, or will be? It can change if you let it. Are we there yet?
Can’t we just drop this reflexive use of anonymous sources for no good reason?
The practice should indeed be dropped, tishado. Because as far as we readers are concerned, the “anonymous” sources are just the column’s author making stuff up.
Interesting article on Kissinger this week warning of a nuclear Iran and how time is growing short to stop it.Contrary to what The Iranian and liberal American press would have you believe the consensus still seems to be that they are striving to become a nuclear armed nation. Some in this country are actually dimwitted enough to stand on principle.They ask “what is wrong with other countries joining our little party”Plugging in countries like North Korea and Iran to those equations marks you a slack jawed moron.So while it is easy to laugh at Iran putting a monkey into space,(a huge jump in technology….if it was 1957!!!!)It is no laughing matter to those on the front line(Israel).They will act- if Iran does not change direction.They have taken Iran’s endless threats with the seriousness they deserve.Of course all this can become academic.All Iran need do is accept that the totality of their world, and their place in it,will be a better place when the world does not view them as a threat.North Korea is a pariah.Iran will be more so.The sanctions are the least we can do to impress the Iranian leadership that we mean to hamper their designs.And I do me the LEAST.Let us pray that iran sees the era of their ways so that we never see the MOST that can be done to stop them.
Ah, Michael E — knee-jerk Chenyism continues. I’ve been off this site for a while, so interesting to see that your robotic posts persist.
At least they’re vaguely on topic, unlike some.
Good to see you back Eric.I guess I just want the libs to get clear on what they do want concerning Iran.Always half arguments.Do they WANT a nuclear Iran?Yes or No?Do they believe Iran is trying to get “the bomb”?Yes or no?Do they think Iran is a danger to the peace and stability of her neighbors….yes or no?These are the kind of straight questions they would be asked if they were on the presidents national security team.FAIR allows them to pontificate out both sides of their ass.
Huh? Yes, I want a nuclear Iran–that way I know we wouldn’t start another ground war there, and the Israelis would think real hard about bombingTehran. Don’t bother gettin’ all worked up, either–I’m not going to respond beyond this observation. If you can’t figure this stuff about Iran by now, there’s no hope for you. You believe every fantastic war-mongering lie our and Israel’s government tell you.
Tim no getting worked up……your just talking geo political nonsense.You just got fired as ANY presidents national security team member.