Not long after the ongoing protests in the Islamic Republic began, an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times expressed sympathy for the demonstrators while arguing that the U.S. should loosen its sanctions on the country. After all, the commonplace argument goes, sanctions only increase the hardships of ordinary Iranians. Shay Khatiri explains that, to the contrary, economic pressure has weakened the regime, paving the way for the present unrest:

The sanctions’ negative effect on the material wellbeing of Iranians is collateral damage. . . . The half-Communist, half-kleptocratic, fully corrupt structure of the economy has much more to do with Iranians’ economic struggles than the sanctions.

Case in point: the economic wellbeing of Iranians deteriorated after the enactment of the Iran nuclear agreement, which eased some sanctions. In fact, the unemployment rate rose from 11.2 percent to 12.6 percent after the deal. Child labor and beggary kept peaking. In 2017, the last year of U.S. compliance with the agreement, Iran’s GDP grew by 2.8 percent, far behind the 8-percent inflation rate. The first major anti-regime, violent protests in Iran happened in 2017 and were triggered in response to high prices and corruption.

Meanwhile, sanctions have helped Iranians exercise more social freedoms. They bring alcohol from home to restaurants and cafés and drink in public. There are even instances of public dancing. Literally and metaphorically, observation of the hijab law is becoming looser and looser. Regime apologists outside of Iran would claim that this was because of the reformist administration of Hassan Rouhani, who served as president from 2013 to 2021. But in reality, the regime hasn’t had enough money to hire sufficient high-quality law enforcement agents. . . . The regime has been trying to compensate for its personnel shortage with increased brutality.

The impoverishment that sanctions have imposed on the regime is now an obstacle to cracking down on protests for the same reason.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.