Ali

Like, the U.S.

can't force private banks to pursue business they don't want to do.

It's a free country.

So despite that very important person meeting in May of 2016, big banks did not really go back into Iran.

So on that front, the U.S.

failed to deliver on the supposed benefits of coming to the negotiating table.

But that wasn't the only way that sanctions didn't quite work out as hoped.

It became obvious that the U.S.

can't keep its own promises in another way, too.

Because just over a year after the Iran nuclear deal, it got torn up.

after Donald Trump was inaugurated.

In 2018, Trump reimposed the sanctions and over the years has added more.

And the economic misery in Iran worsened.

Inflation has gone up and up, GDP has fallen, and so has GDP per capita.

Iva Leila, our political economist who poured over those giant books in Iran's archives, she says sanctions can make some people very rich.

And the last way that sanctions haven't really worked is advertised.

It's become increasingly clear that sanctions are not quite the bloodless tool the U.S.

suggests.

Because the actual mechanism by which sanctions put pressure on a government is the immiseration of its people.

At first, it's just inflation.