Introduction
Just three US dollars for a gram? D, this twenty-something-year-old, wearing glasses and a button-down shirt, asked me with urgency in his voice. We had struck up a conversation by the fountains of Naqsh-e-Jahan Square in Isfahan, Iran. Now a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site, the Square is surrounded by symmetrical rows of inset arches on each of the four lengths. Though the Grand Bazaar, palace, and mosque embedded in the enclosure all date back to the seventeenth century, many locals can be found regularly congregating in the marketplace or sitting on a bench by the manicured green lawn that lines the inside of the Square.
D was a recent college graduate who studied engineering in college and had an interest in learning languageswhich I learned by conversing with him in Mandarin. He hoped to save up enough money to live abroad, perhaps somewhere in Europe, where he envisioned a better future and more employment opportunities than in Iran. To finance his dreams, he had decided to trade saffronstocking up on kilograms of the valuable, bright red spice with the intention of selling small batches to tourists visiting Iran. Little did D know that the United States would abruptly pull out of the Iran Deal. With expectations of growing inflation and fewer visitors to the country due to worsening foreign relations, Ds business idea started to turn sour. He was left with bags of high-quality saffron with no buyers. At $3 per gram, this was less than half the price of the spice in foreign countries. In America, the equivalent quality of saffron could be sold for as much as $8.29 per gram.
D and I were the same age, shared similar interests, and both had ambitious futures. Yet, his countrys tumultuous economy had not only cost him his business idea, but the fraught US-Iran relations that were responsible for the sudden economic downturn were also affecting his life plans. His hopes for emigration were all but gone. For now, he was struggling with everyday finances. Standing opposite him, this situation seemed surreal.
As I traveled throughout Iran, I met more and more people like him: people who had taken big risks in their life but lost the optimism that had originally motivated them. Idealism became a luxury when faced with the reality of Irans volatile economic situation. Young graduates started businesses, but did so knowing that their fledgling companies could collapse within a news cycle. Petroleum engineers became tour guides. People turned to any kind of employment for a viable income, only to learn about the sanctions wide-reaching impacts.
Yet, despite the myriad stressors arising from the economic burdens and uncertainties, Iranians were patient and generous to locals and foreigners alike. A taxi driver drove up to another car just to warn the owner of some problems with the exhaust pipe. A man offered a packet of gum in his pocket to the young boy in the bazaar begging for food. Everywhere my friends and I went, people gave us their phone numbers in case of any emergencies: So long as you are in Iran, call me if you ever need anything, they said.
To our surprise, some Iranians were not shy about discussing politics in public. People were unafraid to make fun of the foreign medias portrayal of Irans religiosity. Many complained about the regime. Some students even openly mocked mullahs (religious clerics) on the street. When asked about countries like the US, where both governments are mutually antagonistic, locals asserted the distinction between their objection towards the US government and their recognition of humanity in the American people.
From my brief three weeks traveling from the north to the south of Iran, I was already impressed by the countrys complexity and diversity. Everything from food to religiosity varies from region to region, and within regions. Iranians are generous, proud, polite, modest, brave. They are law-abiding and rebellious. They have a rich cultural history that values art and literature and science. They dislike America, but like Americans. They have so much potential but, in some way or another, they are all held back.
One of the largest hurdles toward seeing Iranians as humanswith hopes, dreams, and rich cultureis the negative public view of Iran as a country and regime. Whereas the regimes actions have been depicted as a religious extremist threat towards international security, Irans experience of imperialist interference and US meddling throughout history instead suggests a more desperate, defensive view of its actions. Regardless of Irans real motivations, vilification of the country persists as public perception remains negative. Eighty-eight percent of Americans surveyed in a 2020 Gallup Poll indicated they had mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable views on Iran. The combination of the overwhelming antagonism and the lack of American travelers to Iran reveals an absence of understanding and nuance in the public debate.
Following the announcement of the US reimposition of pre-Iran Deal sanctions, Trump posted an image of himself with the words Sanctions are Coming, playing on a popular phrase from the television series Game of Thrones. Yet relative to hostile rhetoric against Iran, there has generally been little coverage about the harms that sanctions inflict on the Iranian people.
While human rights violations are inexcusable, Americas sanctions on Iran to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its human rights violations are hypocritical. These sanctions are implemented as the United States strengthens alliances with Saudi Arabia: a country that scores a 7 out of 100 (not free) in Freedom Houses Freedom in the World 2020 report, maintains repressions on womens rights, migrant rights, and restricts free expression, association, and assembly. As will be explained in the chapters of this book, sanctions impede Iranians access to healthcare, food, housing, and education, among other rights.
For people fortunate enough to not have experienced the devastating impacts of sanctions and regimes, we have had the privilege of remaining oblivious to their real consequences. When I participated in Model United Nations in middle and high school, my friends and I would throw around the word sanctions for dramatic effect, freely and jokingly, as a means of threatening delegates from any country outside our circle of alliances. From a simple Google search of sanctions memes Model UN, this attitude towards sanctions is not uncommon. Thus, when sanctions frequently came up during conversations with Iranian locals as a major reason for their pessimism, I was struck by how many people were feeling the real consequences of a policy tool that had previously felt like an abstract concept to me.
