Sanctions against Iran? Dont make me laugh!!

In most, if not all, countries of the world in order to enforce laws there are systems and process to identify those who may have committed acts deemed illegal and normally what follows is a punishment of some sort which serves to dissuade the perpetrator from repeating his actions, exacts a retribution for those actions and discourages others from following acting in a similar fashion. While many nations are fair in their application of law, often the systems of trial and punishment are hijacked by questionable regimes and used to terrorise a populace into submission and compliance. Whatever the nature of the regime, the punishment aspect is what gives law enforcement its' bite. It is what actually makes it enforcement rather than a statement of what the state wished people would do. If we move from the micro to the macro environment, an effective way to scale these processes up has yet to be devised. Saddam Hussein is a case in point.

Sanctions against Iraq after the Kuwait invasion and the First Gulf War disproportionately affected the people particularly the poor unconnected people. Saddam Hussein was unconcerned as long as he and his sons could frolic in their lavish palaces and live the good life. When he need more funds, he figured a way around the sanctions by getting around the now infamous "Oil for Food Programme" which was devised to assuage the guilt of Western diplomats who felt at least partly responsible for the death of almost a million Iraqi children. Saddam was unconcerned with the fate of the ordinary Iraqi hence rendering economic sanctions totally useless. Travel bans and targeted sanctions are just as useless as Mugabe proved by attending the Pope's funeral.

I do not know what the solution is but if we are to get a solution in North Korea, Burma (or is that Myanmar), Zimbabwe among other hot spots we as a world need to find an effective way to punish despotic leaders in a way which actually amounts to a genuine punishment that they would care about. In honesty I do not know what the solution is but I can see the problem and if some system is not found, state actors will continue to abuse the rights of their populations and thumb their nose at the international community.