One issue is that there's X% (debatable) of people who can't work for reasons that are complex or hard to explain. For many, even if they are physically able, you kinda don't want them to.

I mean, people who will create negative utility in a workplace or cost more in supervision expense than you get from them as output.

They create hazards for others by being drunk or on drugs on the job, or by harassing or bullying others, injuring themselves or others, causing personality conflicts or dramas due to trauma or unresolved mental health issues etc. I don't mean this as a value judgment, it's just like some people really aren't in a place in life where they can function well in work settings.

I'm not sure how you "guarantee" something that is dependent on complex situational decisions.

Iraq I will grant you, those sanctions were a travesty. Cuba bad too.

In general, I don't find the argument that there were 38 million deaths from sanctions very convicing. That estimate is based on excess deaths and correlation. It is serious work. But it doesn't establish causal structure.

What I mean is, those studies don't have the power to distinguish between (regime -> sanctions -> deaths) vs (regime -> deaths + regime -> sanctions).

I would definitely agree that sanctions cost lives (e.g. unavailability of specialist medicines) but I don't see a specific mechanism whereby they cause "millions" of deaths without a complete failure of local governance.

> Iran has weathered decades of sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "we're going to starve you and deny your citizens basic medical care". The death toll for this is also likely in the millions.

Hi, I think millions is a drastic overstatement here which undermines the rest of your (often legitimate) claims.

Also Israel seems to have fairly normal relations with many countries in the region, the difference seems to be they are "countries not publicly calling for the destruction of Israel".