During those times my both parents were having small private firms and were trying to make end's meet which were difficult enough with the collapsing economy and inflation and having no political connections with the ruling class (they despised the serbian nationalism and were being active in the then-opposition parties) sure didn't help them.
The one occasion I will never forget is when my parents decided to go to Hungary to try to buy some glazes for my mother's pottery shop. They would've bought some 20-30 kilos, smuggled it in our car and that would've been enough for a next few months. When the shopkeeper in the Hungary heard they are from Serbia he decided that he wouldn't want to sell them anything because "embargo and war and stuff" and so my parents came home empty handed. They came to the shop as private individuals and must have mentioned briefly where they would be taking the merchandise (they both spoke hungarian) but the shopkeeper kept looking at them as if they were personally responsible for all the things that were going in the Bosnia at the time. We didn't have to close the shop, a few weeks later they found another supplier and bought from there but it really left a bitter taste in their mouths.
(shameless plug: this is now my brother's pottery shop who inherited it from our mother who passed away 6 years ago, this is a small promo video he did some time ago)
The video is great, I wish best luck to your brother and his business!
[1]: I'm Russian and there is a ton of shit going on [in/because of] my country and a lot of people are unhappy about it (Ukrainians in particular). The issue is morally complicated AF and is closely related to a concept of collective responsibility, which isn't a clear-cut either. Personally I decided that it's wrong to completely separate myself from the actions of my govt (I know I could do more to prevent its misdeeds), so I feel some guilt about it and acknowledge when people have prejudices about me. Fortunately, most people (even more amazing, most of Ukrainians, despite all the shit Russia did to them) are nice and friendly when they see I don't consider appropriate to snatch chunks of neighbour's land.
The US & UK overthrew Iran's parliamentary democracy, and installed the Shah. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat)
The US is the world's most hyperviolent bully. (Just compare its capacity and use of violence to any other entity.) Bullies generally don't admit they're bullies, despite all evidence, and swear they're justified when smashing their victims.
If embargoes are pursued after decades with no evidence that they are beneficial, then calling them "dumb" is not so unjustified.
Let's perform a gedankenexperiment. There is a country A that "misbehaves" — e.g. threatens its neighbourhoods and promises to hit them with nuclear weapons ASAP (in other words, promises nuclear offense). Quick note: in this context "country A" means "government of country A". There is also a country (or an alliance) B that is overwhelmingly more wealthy than A, has more military might and political power. What do you think B should do? Here are the options:
1) ignore A until it directly threatens B;
2) use B's military, crush A's government, help A's people to rebuild the country;
3) apply political and economical pressure to A, which in practice means "make A citizens' life miserable so they deal with A's government themselves". It's sometimes possible to apply the pressure selectively (e.g. to A's elites).
I agree with you that it's a morally ambivalent situation. However, I strongly believe that an embargo (including "digital" one) causes less casualties than "boots on the ground". Moreover, democracies don't fight each other, so in this scenario A is (most likely) a dictatorship. Dictatorships are bad and I believe that wealthy countries should care about long-term wellbeing of citizens of other countries, at least for their own self-interest. Your opinions may differ, but it would be wrong to brush off the whole issue with "political mess created by dumb people".