Economic sanctions almost never force a government to change course, yet we keep reaching for them because they feel like action. Look at Iran: forty-plus years of sanctions, and the regime is still standing. Cuba has been under a US embargo since 1962. Meanwhile the people who suffer most are ordinary families, not the elites the sanctions target. So I lean no — sanctions are mostly symbolic, not effective. But I'd genuinely like to hear a case where they clearly worked.