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Originally Posted by Sidd Finch
I agree that sanctions vs. Russia are not particularly meaningful.
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Actually, my understanding is that they are hurting the Russian economy fairly severely. But they are still secondary to the hit it is taking from the oil slide - we have the benefit of getting to kick them when they're down. As they recover, they'll be able to develop alternative suppliers for most things (e.g., China).
My point was simply that the sanctions are about number five or six on the list of clusterfucks Putin has to deal with.
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Disagree with respect to South Africa. It was the only real lever that we had, and it was effective from everything I've read and discussed. Though the oil embargo was more effective. What do you think caused white South Africans to turn the corner?
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Here, again, I think sanctions had their impact, but the real victory goes to the ANC and Mandela, who got change by bringing pressure every way you can, from sanctions to terrorism, on the government.
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I hope you are right and I am wrong on this. I don't see the Ayatollahs loosening up. I also don't see any more Ahmedinejads being elected, the electorate generally shifting to more mainstream and rational candidates and that shift being helped by true capitalism -- BUT I fear the reaction to this will be more repression by the Ayatollahs.
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There is a large and overwhelmingly optimistic Iranian ex-pat community that seems pretty confident of this. That's my barometer. They know better than we do. One rather humorous metric -- the relief of the ban on women attending certain sporting events was just loosened, but if you look at pictures of Iranian sporting events, women have been showing up for a while.
