https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/10/28/new-york-times-editors-want-to-send-5-bil
The New York Times is seizing on the coronavirus pandemic to push the idea of easing American economic sanctions on Iran, notwithstanding Iranian interference in American elections.
A staff editorial the Times published earlier this month was headlined, “Iran’s Covid-19 Death Toll Is Rising. Show Mercy, Mr. Trump.” It argued for relaxing the sanctions against Iran, calling them “particularly cruel during a pandemic.” The Times followed up days later by publishing an opinion piece describing Iranians as “crushed” by “extreme US sanctions.” And by publishing a follow-up editorial inaccurately claiming “Sanctions against Iran are opposed by allies and threaten a humanitarian disaster.”
Here are nine reasons the Times editorial line is misguided:
It relies on a discredited expert. The Times editorial says: “Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, calls the American ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran ‘sadism masquerading as foreign policy.’” Slavin had to apologize in 2017 after being photographed making an obscene gesture to protesters against the Iranian regime. Back in January 2020, Slavin wrote a Times op-ed headlined “Qassim Suleimani’s Killing Will Unleash Chaos.” The chaos she predicted failed to materialize. The Times fails to mention that the Atlantic Council’s funders include foreign governments and foreign individuals, oil companies, a nuclear power company and undisclosed “anonymous” donors, some of which may want to do business in Iran or have commercial interests affected by the sanctions. The line about “sadism masquerading as foreign policy” is clever, but sending money to an enemy country, as the advocates of eased sanctions want to do, is masochism masquerading as foreign policy.
