A few days ago, Venezuela's Minister for Science and Technology Gabriela Jime'nez was in Tehran to buy medical equipment, including a hundred dialysis machines. This tells us two things: first, that Iran continues to produce medical equipment and pharmaceutical drugs -- despite the sanctions; and second, that these two countries that are being hit hard by the West's hybrid war have had to turn to each other for trade. Venezuela's medical system has been hit harder than that of Iran -- last year, the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation reported that it was suffering from an 85 percent shortage of essential medicines.
It is a measure of the fortitude of Iran that -- despite these unilateral U.S. sanctions -- it has been able to maintain production of medical equipment and drugs. Nonetheless, the Human Rights Watch report should be seen as an alarm.
Humanitarian Exceptions
The United Nations has repeatedly said that sanctions are not a humane policy and must no longer be allowed to be part of the arsenal of the powerful nations. Exceptions for medicines and food are routinely argued for. The United States claims that it does not use sanctions to hurt people, which is why it often provides exceptions. In August 2019, the U.S. government released guidance that putatively softened its policy vis-Ã -vis Venezuela. It said that "humanitarian support can flow" into Venezuela. Even if this is merely rhetoric, no such softening has occurred for Iran. The U.S. has not issued any such guidance toward its policy on Iran. Rather, it has tightened these dangerous sanctions as part of its hybrid war against Iran.
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