It's not for fun. It's that politicians are largely impotent in many situations, but refuse to accept this. I mean they're the leader of entire countries after all, and in the case of the US you're the leader of ostensibly the strongest military in the world, with enough nukes to end the world at your finger tips 24/7. How can you not be omnipotent, the most powerful person alive!?
But then it turns out that war is too dirty, cyber stuff isn't dirty enough. So what's left? Economics - sanctions. We've carried out 374 ultra important meetings, and traveled to 73 different countries, to prepare this critical 974th package of sanctions. This time it'll actually do something and be totally more effective than other 973, in spite of the fact that obviously the most impactful things are the first to be sanctioned.
It's obviously little more than theatrics, but it lets politicians feel powerful and like they're exerting influence on their enemies. And indeed, they may be responsible, at least in poorer countries for some people starving, which is then mental gymnasticed into 'Ah hah! They'll blame their government, overthrow them and become our ally, the people making them starve.'
It's really a shock that seems to basically never come to fruition. Well except when you're sanctioning a third of the planet [1], including many of the most unstable places in the world, and any time there's a regime change in these places - 'Ah hah! See? Sanctions work!' The fact that said change would often have happened in any case is kindly swept aside. It's akin to the joke that Zerohedge has successfully predicted 53 of the last 3 economic recessions.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_sanct...