In a hospital ward in Tehran, a nurse quietly adjusts the makeshift bandage of a young girl suffering from epidermolysis bullosa-- an incurable condition also known as "butterfly disease." The child winces, not only from pain but from the awareness that the specialized dressings she needs no longer arrive. They've been blocked-- not by medical shortages or supply chain delays-- but by economic sanctions imposed on Iran that have restricted access to critical medical imports (click here) .
This girl is not alone. Across Iran and other sanctioned nations, the faces of such children are hidden behind statistics and headlines, if they appear at all. The logic behind their suffering is often called diplomacy. But in reality, it is something more enduring, more silent, and more insidious: a form of civilizational warfare, where policy is weaponized not to change governments-- but to break societies.
Sanctions are often described in Western capitals as alternatives to war. They are said to "pressure regimes" and avoid bloodshed. But this language sanitizes their true effect. Sanctions are not abstract levers. They are embodied policies. They invade homes, empty pharmacies, and paralyze hospitals. They transform everyday items-- bandages, insulin, chemotherapy drugs-- into political bargaining chips (click here).
And while no missiles fly, the casualties are real. A mother unable to obtain seizure medication for her child; a father forced to choose between food and fuel due to inflation driven by financial isolation. These are not collateral damages. They are the primary effects of a system that sees pressure as power, and suffering as strategy.
Iran is a prominent case, but not a unique one. In Venezuela, U.S. sanctions have contributed to widespread malnutrition and medical collapse (Click Here/). In Cuba, a decades-long embargo has stunted the growth of generations, especially in access to pediatric cancer treatment (Click Here). In Syria and Yemen, sanctions and blockades continue to kill silently even after the bombs stop falling (Click Here/).
What binds these nations is not a shared ideology or alignment-- but their distance from the dominant geopolitical order. Sanctions, once tools of statecraft, have evolved into a system of punishment for global disobedience. They remind the world who defines the rules of legitimacy-- and who pays the price for stepping outside them.
This reality becomes even more jarring when viewed through the lens of Western liberalism. The liberal tradition proclaims universal rights: to life, liberty, dignity. But when those rights are denied on the basis of nationality, how universal are they?
Would John Locke, the father of liberal thought, condone denying children access to life-saving medicine because of where they were born? Would Adam Smith, defender of free markets, accept a world where oil cannot be sold and basic imports are blocked-- not because of demand or supply, but because of a hegemonic decision? Would Immanuel Kant, who believed every human must be treated as an end in themselves, tolerate a regime where human beings are reduced to means-- to political leverage?
The moral foundations of liberalism crumble when applied selectively. And yet, the very powers that claim moral authority from these philosophies often trample them in practice (Click Here).
Western media plays a subtle but critical role in this civilizational dynamic. When tragedy strikes in Europe or among Western allies, images and stories dominate headlines. Faces are named, tears are shared. But when the same pain visits a sanctioned child in Iran or a patient in Caracas, it rarely becomes news-- unless it can be framed against their government (Click Here).
To strip a people of medical supplies and then ignore their decline is not diplomacy. It is dehumanization.
What emerges is a disturbing pattern: sanctions act as a non-military system of international enforcement that bypasses international law, ignores human rights frameworks, and operates with almost no oversight. Institutions like SWIFT or the IMF are used not neutrally but politically, denying countries access to financial lifelines (Click Here).
This structure amounts to a new architecture of domination, one no longer built on colonies or armies, but on currency flows, trade routes, and moral duplicity. The battlefield is economic, but the target is deeply human.
It is easy to speak of sanctions in abstract terms-- GDP decline, currency devaluation, macroeconomic instability. But what is often forgotten is the human being behind every data point.
A girl with butterfly skin who cannot sleep from pain. A man who dies because dialysis tubes are embargoed. A child whose cancer treatment is cut short because the medicine is trapped behind financial walls.
These are not anecdotes. They are indictments. If civilization is to mean anything beyond material progress, it must begin with compassion. It must recognize that to sanction life is to desecrate the very ideals we claim to protect.
Peiman Salehi is a political analyst and international affairs writer based in Tehran. He contributes to Africa Is a Country, ZNetwork, and CounterPunch, writing on civilizational theory, global inequality, and critiques of Western liberalism. His work seeks to elevate voices from the Global South in international discourse.
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