Sanctions are ineffective because they hurt ordinary people more than leadership.  Sanctions operate under the assumption that they will hurt leaders of a country so much that they will bend to the will of the sanctioning country. Yet this assumption is false: governments have the tools to insulate themselves thereby preventing sanctions from imposing necessary pressure. By keeping all available resources for themselves, the government ensures that the sanctions impact only the people. Governments that can achieve this deflection have a relatively powerless citizen base that even when they are suffering have difficulty standing up to the government. Punishing innocent people is immoral, because they are suffering for a crime they did not commit. When the US and UK placed sanctions on Saddam Hussein, it lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq, although the exact number is contested. Considering that US ultimately invaded Iraq, these children died in vain. In North Korea, it is thought that sanctions have led to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people. In both Myanmar and North Korea most of the pain from sanctions is deflected onto the largely helpless population who have little ability to put pressure on their oppressive governments to stop the suffering1. Because this suffering often does not affect the leadership, they can essentially ignore any pressure to reform2. And, many of these governments simply don't have an interest in improving the lives of their people, making sanctions immoral and ineffective3. 1 Carpenter, Ted and Preble, Christopher (2006), "North Korean Sanctions: A Cruel Mirage", The CATO Institute, [Accessed June 10, 2011]. 2 House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs (2006-2007), "The Impact of Economic Sanctions, [Accessed June 10, 2011]. 3 Loyola, Mario (2010), "We Don't Need to 'Get Over the Sanctions Delusion'", National Review,, [Accessed June 10, 2011].