sexandfessenjoon

Hey Joons,

I’m a little sexed out – better known as not getting any. And while I would love to go on about my problems, I thought I’d dedicate tonight to a slightly more depressing cause. Plus, when I actually think about it, I realize that  99 percent of my anger comes from listening to people’s idiotic opinions/conclusions/etc.

(here’s looking at you, Congress). 

Let me take it back a step. The world’s perception of Iran has changed dramatically over the last few years. Sure, the Hostage Crisis didn’t help in the late 70′s/early 80′s, but for the most part – Iran’s “scary factor” was overshadowed by the gossip of “weapons of mass destruction” in countries like Iraq – and once that was discovered to be untrue (and Saddam Hussein was done with), we focused on Afghanistan, and specifically, Bin Laden.

After we killed the bad guys and started moving toward the “reconstruction period” in those countries, our attention became fixated on Iran - thanks to Ahmadinejad, it wasn’t hard for people around the world to stop and think, “Oh he’s batshit… and he runs a country?!” 

If we were to just take Ahmadinejad at face value, is the “threat” that Iran poses void? No, because we have the supreme pleasure to be in the presence of the puppet master, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Also known as the scary ass man with a turban who preaches about the evils of America and is constantly shown cultivating his relationship with Hezbollah.

Personally, I think we’re more afraid of the turbans than of their power.

As Ann Coulter says, people should be imprisoned just for wearing a “hee-jab” in America because they’re assimilating Americans into their culture and pretty soon – we’ll all have undergone clitorectomies. (watch at 2 minutes and 35 seconds – she’s cray). Gosh, we really need “better immigrants” huh.

I digress. Back to the scary turban’ed men – the idea of them gaining nuclear power is horrifying and I can understand why – we don’t know these people here in America, we don’t know what their intentions are, we don’t know if they actually hate us – so we do the only thing that has proven to be effective in the past (please note my intense sarcasm):

We isolate. We sanction. We make life as difficult as humanly possible for the elite regime of Iran so that they will be forced into giving up any and all power – including nuclear power.

It’s almost like high school – we isolate the weird kid in class, we ignore him, we tease him, we make life as difficult as we can (for high school). And then one day, he ends up bringing a gun to school.

But if you ask me, our isolation and intense sanctions routine aren’t having the desired results we’d hope to see.  For one thing, sanctions are hurting the people more than it hurts the regime. Instead of making life harder for the Khamenei’s and Ahmadinejad’s of the world, sanctions are making it more difficult for people to get medical supplies. Cancer patients have barely any access to the necessary medicine to help with their illness (click here).

How are these people a threat to the international community’s national security? Instead, sanctions are victimizing people who have no say in the regime’s nuclear policies.

Furthermore, now that the value of currency in Iran has dropped literally below the point of any value, people are having a difficult time buying daily household necessities, like MILK. Fars News Agency reported that the consumption of milk has decreased by 20 percent as a result of high prices.

That makes sense – Iranians might build a nuclear weapon, so let’s put them at risk for osteoporosis!

I don’t understand the isolation strategy…

Why wouldn’t we want to talk to the people who are the unhappiest with us? Or the people who threaten us? Why wouldn’t we engage them so we can find a solution?

And okay, if the government is just “too crazy” to make any sort of substantial headway with through dialogue – then why aren’t we engaging the people? The next generation of Iranians who have already proven to be both both educated and opinionated?

Sanctions are supposedly an effort to mobilize the people to stand up to their oppression (or their government), right? But how are Iranians supposed to do that when they can’t afford everyday household items? Or when every political opposition leader that they’ve had in the last four years sits under house arrest?

Additionally, a  new round of sanctions have been passed that ban intellectuals from publishing their findings in scientific journals. Yes, let’s silence the intellectual community of Iranians and continue to allow the regime to have a voice in the media.

We expect people to find a way to gain access to information without helping them. We expect people to SPEAK OUT without allowing them the platform to do it. How can we expect change when we discourage it through our policy?

In the U.S., we preach the importance of democracy, and the values and human rights that democracy provides citizens. We exemplify to the world that democracy is the model form of governance. In fact, we even hope for established democracies in countries like Egypt, Iraq, and Iran. However, sanctions steal the citizen’s basic human rights. Iranians suffer from censorship and the lack of basic needs like dairy products or medicine.

We should be working with the people of the country – equipping them with the right tools to not only, survive but to have a voice. 

And while many of us don’t have the power to create change immediately, we all have a voice – it’s easy to forget those who are suffering when we are mad or when it doesn’t affect us directly. But we need to make sure the unheard voices are loud and clear for the rest of the world.

SEXANDFESSENJOON@GMAIL.COM

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FARRAH فرح