Perhaps you are familiar with the concept of barrier troops. During the WW2, Soviets had serious problems with desertion. Their response was to place soldiers behind regular troops, who would just shoot the ones who would not suicide-rush the Nazis. For their own good, of course. Sanctions work in a similar way, but instead of shooting, the deserters would just be starved out. I guess we really live in more civilized times.
I suppose this would also be a great way to deal with abusive spouses - just forbid anyone to employ their family or sell them anything, until they club him to death.
Your analogies are not valid.
Sanctions are how countries express substantial disapproval with one another, barrier troops just shot deserters. The only thing these two concepts have in common is that they involve persuasion, which can apply to almost any interaction between people.
It's not self-determination. They have a simple choice - overthrow their government and choose the one that US will accept, or live in poverty and possibly starve.
That's just ridiculous. What, do you think what's going on now is any kind of self-determination, with the electoral fraud and the theocracy above it? The public executions? The mandatory veiling laws?
You seem to be advocating that we just let that keep happening without objection. Well, I can't abide by that. And if the Iranians need to be pushed, then they need to be pushed, but in the end the choice of the new government is their own. The fact that the best government for the people is also one that the US would probably approve of does not invalidate that.
We could try a global disarmamenBWAHAHAHAHA
It's not as crazy as you think. There are less nukes ready to launch right now than at any point since the mid-50's or so. South Africa and the post-Soviet states (sans Russia) gave up their nukes. Most of China's aren't even assembled. There are still enough left to destroy the world, but we're making progress.
Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, India, and potentially Iran are the hotspots of the Nuclear Club right now. Everyone else is very unlikely to deploy at this point even if they retain their nukes.
Who's "begging"? Everything Iran has done so far is LEGAL within the Nonproliferation treaty. And they outright deny they want a nuke.
Israel also denies they have nukes, but we all know how true that is.
Even the Pentagon reports don't claim they have a weapons program.
I hope they're right, then, because Iran definitely has motive for getting nukes.