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.



Many college students in California last week protested proposed statewide tuition increases, and in addition to the outrage induced by the prospect of higher education now becoming unaffordable or financially crippling, the anger only grew due to a series of racially motivated events that occurred throughout California's higher education system.  At the University of California-San Diego a student hung a noose in the school's library, predominately white students had a ghetto-themed party, and a school television show questioned the need for Black History Month.  Students at UC Irvine also questioned the need for Black History Month in the school paper.  For many Californians this is not a great time to pursue higher education.  For many students the financial burden of pursuing a higher education may make education undesirable, and for minority students the growing reality that some segments of the student body do not enjoy your presence only compounds that same burden.  However, regardless of how unsavory these events may be the focus of this issue is the response.

The events created anger and frustration, but a response has been discussed for quite a while.  The students would protest the events, and ideally they would be peaceful protests.  The students' protests should disrupt the usual course of people’s lives.  If everything stays the same then nothing has changed, so the essence of a protest is to disrupt the normal.  The normal is no longer enough, thus we will change that and we will do so peacefully.  However, with peaceful protests comes the reality that those whose lives have been disrupted may not respond peacefully.  The police may want to beat your ability to reason or to recognize injustice into submission and replace them with the fear of further beatings.  That is what happened in California, and that is all I have to say. 

The appropriate act is to watch the video below because protests are simple acts both major and minor in size with the intention of eradicating the insignificant normalcy that can so easily encompass ones life.

Ahmadinejad participating in a conference held by Arab states in 2007.

On February 22, 2010, Ahmadinajad's administration announced that airlines not referring to the waterway between Iran and the Arabian peninsula as the Persian Gulf will be banned from Iranian airspace.

The sudden sensitivity for the naming of persian gulf is very different from Iranian government's former position on issue in the past few years. In fact, one of the many criticisms that Ahmadinejad faced during the Iranian disputed presidential election was the government's lack of sensitivity for the use of the name Persian Gulf in negotiating with certain neighboring Arab countries. In fact, the above picture was one of the most popular pictures several months ago amongst Iranians which showed Ahmadinejad participating in a conference held by Arab states while the Arabic writing on the wall refers to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. This was a great concern for the Iranians.

 The waterway separating Iranian plateau and the Arabian peninsula is historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf with a history of naming dating back to 550 BC while the naming dispute of whether it should be called the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf dates back to the 60's.

Ever since, the naming dispute has always been a subject of tension between Iran and some the Arab nations in the region. In 1974, Mike Wallace touches on this subject in a subtle way in an interview with the former Shah of Iran to highlight the tension that existed between Iran and Saudi Arabia at the time.

Similar to the nuclear issue, this also seems another of Ahmadinejad's attempt to legitimize his presidency in the eyes of the Iranians by grasping to nationalistic sentiments even at the cost of furthering the tensions in the region. However, one thing is certain. Even an intimidating non-tolerant militarized regime such as the one currently controlling Iran needs to appease its people every once in a while. How it goes about doing that, though, is another story.

Download the episode HERE.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Additionally, the video for "Excuses" is great and you can watch it here.

For more information on The Morning Benders visit their website.

This wall mural by Baptiste Debombourg is made completely out of staples.

This week I wanted to talk about the health of America’s governing branches.  I wanted to explore the reasons and repercussions of the apparent merging of the legislative and executive branches.  I wanted to examine how this week’s health care summit has displayed the diminishing power of the legislative branch and the increasing power of the executive.  I wanted to focus solely on this reality, yet now after the earthquake in Chile the relationship between the executive and legislative seems less significant.  It still needs examining, but sometimes we need to focus on the reality and not the metaphor.  Washington may be ‘broken’, but there are plenty of places and people who are in much more dire straights.

At the end of the day, we can argue about health care all day long.  The Democrats can want to create government institutions to provide health care for American citizens, and the Republicans can favor completely restructuring the private sector to provide health care for Americans.  The sides will never agree, and the country will remain at an impasse until one side acts and angers the opposition.  At the end of the day one would hope that either side would decide to act based on good intentions instead as a result of negative events.

The destruction from the earthquake in Chile, and additionally from the less forceful yet more destructive earthquake in Haiti, should allow everyone to understand the necessity of supporting others in times of need.  Our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and watched their worlds crumble around them in these recent earthquakes, yet at some point people need to be able and willing to help others before total destruction has occurred.  Helping others in times of catastrophe is an admirable trait, yet equally as admirable but less celebrated is the act of helping others before the disaster strikes.

The poor infrastructure of Haiti compounded the results of the earthquake.  The mismanaged levees of New Orleans magnified the damage of Hurricane Katrina.  If anything all people should learn that managing problems before they are exacerbated by other events is to the benefit of everyone.  Proper management makes negative events less detrimental, and prevents them from getting worse.  At some point the American government should be able to care and act for the benefit of American citizens before a disaster has occurred, but sadly over the last decade we have show a near incapacity to act in this fashion.  Lets hope this changes in the near future.

Do not forget Haiti or Chile, and we all should acknowledge that destruction of this magnitude can happen to anyone in the blink of an eye.  We should care enough about others and ourselves to act in the right manner not only when disasters occur, but also during all facets of life.

An 8.8 magnitude earthquake has struck Chile today resulting in at least 82 deaths and counting.  Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has declared parts of Chile including the capital Santiago as in a "state of catastrophe".

In addition to the destruction that the earthquake has ravaged in Chile it is also the cause of a massive tsunami that has warranted warning is Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Central America, and Pacific island nations.

To put the strength of this earthquake in perspective we need to know that the earthquake that devastated Haiti a little over a month ago was only a category 7.0.  This one is nearly a category 9.0.

For more info on the earthquake visit the BBC.