Two candidates from last year’s Iranian Presidential Election, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Moussavi issued a joint letter today warning that the various sanctions against Iran, from the UN sanctions passed in June to the unilateral US and EU sanctions passed since, are actually helping President Ahmadinejad consolidate power.
The Obama Administration had insisted that a public offer to talk made by the Iranian government ealrier this month proved that the sanctions were “working.” At the same time, US officials angrily rejected the offer to talk.
But the joint letter reported that in actuality the sanctions are primarily harming Iran’s poor, while sparking resentment against both the international community and opposition figures like themselves, who are increasingly linked with the Obama Administration.
Despite requests from the opposition that the US keep their distance, the State Department has bragged about efforts to support them, giving the Iranian government excuses to crack down on them for being tied with an enemy state constantly threatening invasion.
