Accusing Trump of 'Naked Economic Aggression,' Iran Urges UN High Court to Halt US Sanctions
Amid reports of the “devastating” impact U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly reimposed sanctions are having on ordinary Iranians’ ability to afford basic necessities and life-saving medicines, Iran accused the U.S. of “naked economic aggression” before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday and called on the United Nations body to order a suspension of the penalties.
“Sanctions hurt ordinary people on the streets and do not inflict pain at all whatsoever on the government. How is withholding chemotherapy from my 80-year-old grandmother helpful?”
—Meisam, Iranian-American doctor “The U.S. is publicly propagating a policy intended to damage as severely as possible Iran’s economy and Iranian national companies, and therefore inevitably Iranian nationals,” Mohsen Mohebi, a lawyer representing Iran before the U.N.’s highest court, declared on Monday, arguing that Trump’s sanctions violate the bilateral Treaty of Amity. “This policy is nothing but a naked economic aggression against my country. Iran will put up the strongest resistance to the U.S. economic strangulation, by all peaceful means.”
As Common Dreams reported, critics warned that Trump’s decision to violate the Iran nuclear accord and reimpose sanctions—which officially went into effect earlier this month—significantly heighten the risk of a “new war in the Middle East.”
The trade penalties are just one component of the Trump administration’s broader push to “foment unrest” in Iran, an effort that critics have condemned as a thinly veiled push for regime change.
In an interview on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Trump administration of waging a “psychological war against Iran.”
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