On Tuesday, March 9, 2010, Brazil’s president warned that U.S.-proposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program could lead to war. "We don't want to repeat in Iran what happened in Iraq.  It's not prudent for the world, it's not prudent for Iran," Silva said, AP interview.

Iran has been under US sanctions for nearly 30 years dating back to the hostage-taking crisis.  Ever since various economic, trade, scientific and military sanctions against Iran were practiced by the US and many other countries.

The purpose of sanctions today is based on mistrust in the nuclear ambitions of Iran, and was intended to put further pressure on the Iranian regime. The sanctions ban various companies to have economic ties with Iran. Therefore, the imposed sanctions have had a lot in shaping today’s economy of Iran. The kind of shaping that has not necessarily made things better for a better future and a better relationship with the region. In fact, many today claim the opposite. If you get a hold of any young Iranian today who has recently left the country, it is unlikely that he doesn’t have a personal story of how hard or how much he tried to have his own business but could not succeed.

We are talking millions and millions of unemployed educated students who are looking for jobs in a country under the embargo. I, for one, tried several times to start businesses with the help of friends throughout my undergraduate and graduate life and have seen many others doing so in the mean time. Here is a small list of the problems we encountered. No foreign investors, no credit card of any kind, no ability to buy or sell any products abroad, no ability to open up international bank accounts. On many occasions communication or even correspondence was out of question. My understanding after living in a country under the embargo for so many years is that you can try to explore creative ideas and various markets but one thing stays the same, the money is always in the hands of the government. So, you end up with two choices, stay and work for the public sector under a compliant non-enthusiastic atmosphere, or leave the country. This is especially true if you do not come from a wealthy family.

The sanctions have frustrated people and limited their option in terms of living to working with or being linked to public sector, namely the government. And as much as I understand it, with limitations, come monopoly. Monopoly in economy, if not political power. It has actually hindered the trend for change rather than favored it.

On the other hand, uplifting certain sanctions, at least in terms of communication can be of great help for bringing about any constructive change. For instance, Reza Zia-Ebrahimi discusses how providing high-speed internet access by satellites can expose different sources of information and disrupt the monopoly of information currently practiced by the state-run media in Iran.

Roger Cohen also touches on the inefficiency of the sanction and how it is actually acting as an obstacle sometimes for democratic movements and the dialogs that are taking place within the country. For instance, it has been many months where the censorship Research Center has been trying to send the software Haystack, which makes it nearly impossible for censors to detect what Internet users are doing, to Iranian users. But thanks to sanctions, they cannot do so.

Uplifting certain sanctions against Iran can signal a more promising future for the US-Iran relations. In the mean time, it can make life easier for many young people who are struggling to bring about change in their country.

The following video is an interview with Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian peace prize laureate, on sanctions against Iran.