WASHINGTON (AN) — We are sold economic sanctions as an effective and politically popular way to punish the governments of unruly and frequently brutal regimes, like those of Iran, Venezuela and Syria. Yet recent research likens sanctions to economic "siege warfare" that has little effect on the behavior of targeted governments but is cruel and hurtful to their most powerless and vulnerable citizens.
Food gets more expensive, jobs disappear and medicines and medical equipment become unavailable as foreign credit dries up and currency exchange and import restrictions force previously functioning economies into Depression-era levels of unemployment.
