You hear this sort of thing all the time in American foreign policy discussions

You hear this sort of thing all the time in American foreign policy discussions, even from liberals

who, unlike Sullivan, sincerely want to avoid war. And it has a whiff of reasonableness to it, in that

strangulation may be preferable to being shot in the forehead. After all, while death in the latter

case would likely be instant, strangulation is gradual, which may give the victim time to comply with

the aggressor’s demands (if the aggressor’s primary desire is robbery or rape, not killing for the

fun of it) and halt the process. But would anyone deny that both the gunman and the strangler qua

strangler are on a deliberate path to homicide?

There’s a whole literature on how sanctions almost always fail to accomplish regime change, how, in

fact, they usually consolidate power at the top while crushing those at the bottom, those least capable

of bringing down the regime “ children, the elderly, the poor, the sick, imprisoned dissidents.

Everyone knows that by now, even Andrew Sullivan, so I won’t rehash those data and arguments. What I’

m concerned with is challenging this notion that sanctions are on some separate plane of action from

war. It represents a real failure of imagination on the part of the world’s policemen, who never pause

to consider how things must look from the other end of the nightstick. Would any of you liberals who

say sanctions are an alternative to war maintain that line if sanctions were applied to you? What would

you think if some foreign behemoth “ uni- or multilateral “ encircled your country by land, sea, and

air in an attempt to choke off, say, fuel imports? For all of you econotards out there, gasoline isn’t

just for trips to the beach and NASCAR races: food and medical supplies, among other things, don’t

just sprout wings and fly to where they’re needed. the Uggs has to import half of its gasoline, so we

’re talking about inflicting serious damage on the country’s civilian infrastructure (forget about

crippling its military: militaristic regimes from D.C. to Jerusalem to Tehran always coddle their

killing machines, the rest of society be damned).