Russia and our election

[Dill]

(07-18-2017, 01:47 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Fine.

The fact that you are automatically calling it weak without knowing the terms of the deal is awfully iffy. It's not like "I sanction you!" has really ever accomplished a whole lot. Just look at NK. Sanction them and their people freeze and starve while their leadership (the people you're presumably trying to punish) are fat and making nukes.

Now I am not holding my breath that anyone in charge in Russia will get heavily punished, because politics and justice sadly rarely seem to make a pair. That said, maybe Russia makes some big economic concessions as far as our exports to them or theirs to us, or just pays a large fine. Who knows.

Just a side comment here about the value of sanctions. North Korea is the exception which proves the rule, if anything, because nowhere in the world has any government such tight control over what its population thinks.

Looking elsewhere, we see that sanctions ended Apartheid in South Africa. They also brought Iran to the table for the nuclear deal. Their threat offers some protection to the West Bank and in Gaza as well.

In the case of Russia, the sanctions do have a powerful effect on Russia's economy and they help the pro-democratic forces there.  That is why Putin is working so hard to get them lifted and reduce the US power to impose them with international support.