Iranian perspective on sanctions against banks
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A telecommunication network that is essential to the way global banks do business expelled 30 Iranian financial institutions Saturday. Iran's banks use the network to bring money in from the sale of oil.
It was the first time the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) had ever taken such a drastic step--and it will further isolate and punish Iran for its nuclear ambitions.
But Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American writer and foreign policy commentator, said those sanctions may have an unanticipated effect.
"In Iran, political change cannot be brought about by coercion, sanctions or exiles and their enablers, despite what American politicians might think," Majd wrote in a New York Times op-ed. "Instead, it will come slowly -- too slowly for an American election cycle, to be sure. And it will come only after Iranians are no longer hungry and the government has no excuses left, including national security, to deny the people's civil rights."
Majd will join The Daily Circuit Tuesday to discuss the Iranian perspective on the issue. He is the author of--most recently--"The Ayatollah's Democracy."
"Allowing Iran to function normally in the economic sphere would empower ordinary Iranians more than the government and eliminate from its narrative the one mantra it knows resonates with all Iranians: that the West wants to dictate to Iran," Majd wrote in the op-ed .
VIDEO: Hooman Majd on Iranian Sanctions & Society
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