When it comes to Iran, critics claim that reimposed U.S. sanctions have targeted ordinary Iranians, especially by making importing medicine impossible. However, these claims rely on misleading media reports that put their preferred narrative over the truth.
Here’s the background.
On Jan. 30, the Treasury Department announced the completion of initial financial transactions benefiting Iranian medical patients through a humanitarian channel in Switzerland. This channel is known as the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement. The Treasury Department confirmed the completion of initial financial transactions through the new payment mechanism, stating that they provided a “model for facilitating further humanitarian exports to Iran.”
This announcement was followed by statements from Iranian officials clearly contradicting the dozens of media reports that have claimed U.S. sanctions “limit medicine exports to Iran” and are therefore “killing Iranians.”
For instance, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi stated that Iran did not recognize such humanitarian channels. He then added, “medicine and foodstuffs were never subject to sanctions in the first place.” Mousavi also said that the aim of this channel was to “create a channel with much publicity.”
Mousavi’s statement is very important for two crucial reasons.
First of all, it confirms what U.S. officials have been saying for a long time, that medicine and food were always exempt from sanctions. Second of all, with a public channel and a mechanism in place, the United States wants to confront fake news and a widespread disinformation campaign in the Western media.
Since President Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and despite the fact that the U.S. had repeatedly announced that medicine was exempted from reimposed sanctions, a well-organized and widespread disinformation campaign in the Western media has sought to convince public opinion of the contrary. The aim of this campaign was to make it seem as if sanctions were limiting imports of medicine and thus killing people.
What is significant is that most of these reports have been published in well-known, left-leaning newspapers and media organizations.
Furthermore, these reporters failed to include enough credible reports or provide adequate evidence. Instead of relying on data and evidence, which explains the true causes of the shortage of medicine in Iran, the journalists referenced anonymous sources, interviewed “ordinary Iranians,” or even used the Iranian foreign minister’s tweets in English. He is known for his lying, but they repeat his assertions as fact, nonetheless, peddling the regime’s talking points in the process.
As a result, journalists end up leaving crucial facts out of the story.
For instance, in November 2018, both Nilo Tabrizy of the New York Times and Golnar Motevalli and Ladane Nasseri of Bloomberg News claimed that because of U.S. sanctions, there is a shortage of medicine in Iran. They include some details and nuance, but not nearly enough.
The facts clearly contradict this manufactured media narrative: In February 2019, the president of the Central Bank of Iran published a detailed report, which crucially stated that Iran’s imports of medicine had increased, with well more than $11.5 billion worth of medicines and medical supplies imported in just six months.
Despite that information, another report was published in Foreign Policy in August 2019, claiming “US sanctions are killing and affecting cancer patients in Iran.” It somehow failed to include crucial information undercutting this narrative, despite it being widely available and published in Iran.
Furthermore, again in July 2019, another journalist wrote a report for the Associated Press, also based on interviews, claiming that “US sanctions [are] blocking access to needed medicine.” However, like other reports peddled in the media, this one also failed to provide adequate evidence to back the claim and instead relied on interviews conducted with individuals.
Again, the U.S. and Iranian governments say the sanctions are not causing medicinal shortages in Iran, and yet journalists are claiming otherwise, basing their stories on anonymous sources and ignoring the hard evidence. In fact, what medicinal shortages do exist are likely the fault of the Iranian government. President Hassan Rouhani, in July 2019, asked three Cabinet members to explain how import companies “lost” a billion euros, with two of the six companies involved being pharmaceutical companies. So it’s Iranian corruption, not U.S. sanctions, that are causing any medicinal shortages.
In essence, it would seem that the aim of establishing the new Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement is to counter the disinformation campaign plaguing some media outlets and spread the truth that food and medicine were never actually sanctioned by the U.S. Perhaps, this time, the media will finally catch on.
Raman Ghavami (@Raman_Ghavami) is an analyst based in London and the Middle East. He is currently working for a consultancy firm based in the United Kingdom with a focus on insurgency and counterinsurgency.
