Economic sanctions are more commonly being used to try and satisfy a wide range of foreign policies that America had deemed necessary to achieve for the betterment of society. Yet time after time these sanctions are only hurting innocent civilians that are not at fault, and in fact are not even achieving what they were supposed to do. In Arundhati Roy’s essay “The Algebra of Infinite Justice”, Roy critiques the statement given by former U.S. ambassador Madeleine Albright. When Madeleine is asked the question “How she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a result of economic sanctions the U.S. insisted upon” she replied with “it was a very hard choice, but all things considered, we think the price is worth it” (306). Roy then goes on to say that these sanctions are “massacres of innocent people” and that they cause for “collateral damage” (306). Superpowers such as the United States are imposing economic sanctions that are only in the best interest of the people of America and have no regard to the implications that these sanctions come with. Therefore, economic sanctions should not be imposed on nations because they directly impact ordinary civilians and …show more content…
During the Iran Revolution U.S.A. placed sanctions on Iraq because they didn’t want them to have control over weapons of mass destruction. Although I acknowledge that economic sanctions have the right idea, it does not necessarily mean that they are effective. When big sanctions regulating finance and all imports were place on Iran, U.S.A had the goal to stop the import of uranium, but this actually resulted in Iran getting more. After years of the sanctions, Iran adapted and became a self-sustained nation and was able to operate by themselves. This actually allowed the development of nuclear plants more, and intern created more of a threat of nuclear