Hamid Dabashi:

"So far as the emerging civil rights movement is concerned, there is absolutely not a shred of evidence that any major or even minor opposition leader -- from Mir Hossein Moussavi to Mehdi Karrubi to Mohammad Khatami, or any of their related political organs or legitimate representatives -- has ever uttered a word that could possibly be interpreted as calling for or endorsing any sort of economic sanction against Iran, let alone "crippling sanctions."

As in the Iraqi case, imposition of economic sanctions on Iran will have catastrophic humanitarian consequences, while it will even more enrich and empower such critical components of the security and military apparatus as the Pasdaran and the Basij. The two organizations work like a massive corporate conglomerate and have major control over the export-import components of both the official and the unofficial economy.

It will also give them a welcome opportunity to accuse the opposition of cooperation with "the Enemy" and initiate even a harsher crackdown of the opposition, and perhaps even move toward a full-fledged military coup."

Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted" and the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.

Akbar Ganji:

We disagree with military action. We also oppose economic sanctions. Economic sanctions did not weaken Saddam; they weakened the Iraqi people. We have to two major requests. In the hunger strike that we held, our request was for the Secretary-General of the UN to send an envoy to Iran to visit prisons and to meet with prisoners and to ask for the release of all political—prisoners of conscience.

The new campaign that we have launched is against crimes against to humanity. The International Criminal Court considers crimes against humanity. And it is our belief and our suggestion that the leaders of the Islamic Republic have perpetrated crimes against humanity.  Whoever has taken part in oppressing and suppressing the Iranian people, including and especially Ali Khamenei, should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

What we are suggesting to the West and to the United Nations is that if you launch an attack on Iran and if you enforce military sanctions, this will destroy the Iranian people. Why would you punish the Iranian people? You should not punish the Iranian people; punish the Iranian regime, rather.

Akbar Ganji a prominent dissident who recently staged a hunger strike to protest the Iranian government crackdown.