Bloomberg News reports on a new round of EU sanctions against Iranian banks and firms that will be announced tomorrow:
The new restrictions also include a ban on exports to Iran of materials that could be used in the Iranian nuclear and ballistic programs, in particular graphite, aluminum and steel as [...]]]>
Bloomberg News reports on a new round of EU sanctions against Iranian banks and firms that will be announced tomorrow:
The new restrictions also include a ban on exports to Iran of materials that could be used in the Iranian nuclear and ballistic programs, in particular graphite, aluminum and steel as well as industrial software. In addition, the EU prohibited the import of natural gas from Iran and broadened the existing export ban on key equipment for the Iranian oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
…. The sanctions list will be extended to include 34 entities that provide “substantial financial support to the Iranian government” and one person involved in the country’s nuclear program, according to the EU statement. The companies are active notably in the oil and gas industry and in the financial sector, the EU said.
The National Iranian Tanker Co., the largest oil-vessel operator in Iran, is hiding some of the ownership of tankers it controls right under the nose of the U.S. in Central American tax havens, concealing their real nationality from flag registries.
…. On Monday, the EU will formally sign off a ban on the provision of flags to Iranian tankers and cargoes by nationals and companies in the bloc even when operating elsewhere, an EU diplomat said.
…. The same far-reaching measures are being considered against insurers covering Iranian cargoes and so-called classification societies, which survey them to ensure they are fit for sailing … In most cases, those still dealing with Iran are based in Asia.
The US and EU are touting Iran’s currency woes as proof that sanctions are working, though it’s not clear to what end. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Western powers “are working on new coordinated measures intended to accelerate the recent plunge of Iran’s currency and drain its foreign-exchange reserves”:
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The US and EU are touting Iran’s currency woes as proof that sanctions are working, though it’s not clear to what end. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Western powers “are working on new coordinated measures intended to accelerate the recent plunge of Iran’s currency and drain its foreign-exchange reserves”:
The first salvos in this stepped-up sanctions campaign are expected at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Oct. 15, including a ban on Iranian natural-gas exports and tighter restrictions on transactions with Tehran’s central bank, European officials said.
The U.S. and EU are also considering imposing a de facto trade embargo early next year by moving to block all export and import transactions through Iran’s banking system ….
To that end, U.S. lawmakers are drafting legislation that would require the White House to block all international dealings with Iran’s central bank, while also seeking to enforce a ban on all outside insuring of Iranian companies.
David Cohen, who coordinates the US’s Iran sanctions policy from within the Treasury, outlined the US’s stance in a speech before a British think tank. Reuters reports:
[David] Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, added in remarks on a visit to Britain’s Chatham House think-tank that Iran had the ability to “relieve the pressure its people are feeling” by resolving concerns over its nuclear work.
“What in particular has sparked the most recent precipitous decline in the rial, I’m not in a position to say on a granular basis,” he said, adding however that over the past year it had fallen substantially.
The Washington Post also reported that EU officials are “even more blunt” over the intentions behind the sanctions:
One senior European official said the goal of the tightened sanctions was to “bring the Iranian economy to its knees,” and to “make it in a way that really hurts the regime more than the population. That is very difficult.”
But US officials are also attempting to downplay the negative effects of the sanctions by blaming the regime. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday that “[t]he Iranian state has horribly mismanaged all aspects of their internal situation.” Cohen told the Chatham House audience that the unrest in Iran “is undoubtedly in significant part due to the Iranian government’s own mismanagement of its economy and it is in part due to the effect of sanctions. The Iranian leadership has within its capacity the ability to relieve the pressure its people are feeling.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered the following qualifier:
“They have made their own government decisions– having nothing to do with the sanctions– that have had an impact on the economic conditions inside of the country,”" Mrs. Clinton said. “Of course, the sanctions have had an impact as well, but those could be remedied in short order if the Iranian government were willing to work with. . .the international community in a sincere manner.”
Meanwhile the hawkish advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) is urging the US to increase sanctions to leverage the resulting unrest towards regime change:
The Obama administration, the European Union and others should impose an economic blockade on the Iranian regime. The regime is beginning to experience social and political unrest at an 80% devaluation of its currency, and significantly further devaluation will force Tehran to choose between having a nuclear weapon or a functioning economy. A blockade would even bring about the possibility of the failure of this illicit regime.
An economic blockade would mean that any business, firm, or entity that does work in Iran would be barred from receiving U.S. government contracts, accessing U.S. capital markets, entering into commercial partnerships with U.S. entities, or otherwise doing business in the U.S. or with U.S. entities. It is time for the U.S. and others to use all available economic leverage against the regime.
According to EU officials, this is the position Congress is now mulling over, since Iran is still able to move its energy exports on East Asian markets like South Korea’s:
“You could see a move for a total embargo,” said a senior European official involved in the sanctions debate. “This could fall in line with what Congress is thinking.”
- The Washington Post: Scott Wilson writes that shared regional fears of a nuclear weapons possessing Iran might be a catalyst for a breakthrough in this week’s Arab-Israeli peace talks. “Iran’s ambitions, which have cast a long shadow over the greater Middle East, may serve as a common bond keeping a frail peace process intact despite threats that have arisen even before the negotiations open Thursday at the State Department,” he says. Wilson suggests that, if Israel is seriously considering a unilateral strike on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons facilities, Netanyahu will need to stick with peace talks and win goodwill with the White House.
- The Wall Street Journal: Daniel Henninger defends the U.S. invasion of Iraq as preemptively cutting off Iraq’s nuclear ambitions. Henninger theorizes that had the U.S. not invaded, Saddam Hussein would have been driven to pursue nuclear weapons in order to match Iran’s alleged pursuit of the bomb. “In such a world, Saddam would have aspired to play in the same league as Iran and NoKo. Would we have ‘contained’ him?” he asks. Henninger continues his exercise in hypothetical history by suggesting that Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan would enter the “nuclear marketplace” if Iran and Iraq acquired nuclear weapons. He concludes: “The sacrifice made by the United States in Iraq took one of these nuclear-obsessed madmen off the table and gave the world more margin to deal with the threat that remains, if the world’s leadership is up to it. A big if.”
- Foreign Policy: Author Hooman Majd contests a recent U.S. talking point that sanctions are working. Citing political infighting between various conservative factions, the Obama administration argues that sanctions are having an effect. But Majd asserts that this is politics as usual — not a sign that there might be political space for a resurgent Green Movement. In fact, he says, no matter what happens, the real power center in Iran, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, remains firmly in the driver’s seat and the nuclear calculus is still a point of mutual agreement between the many political factions.
- JINSA Report: The ultra-hawkish advocacy organization, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), issued it’s latest e-mail blast calling Iran the “elephant” in the room in nearly every U.S. and Israeli strategic challenge in the region (this mirrors the ‘road to peace leads through Tehran’ meme discussed in yesterday’s TP’s). The U.S. needs “to tame it or remove” that elephant from Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the “the Israel-Palestinian ‘peace’ talks,” JINSA argues.
- The Wall Street Journal: The WSJ editorial board uses two 30-year-old letters from the Imam of the Park 51 community center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, to show Rauf’s alleged anti-Israel and pro-Iranian revolution leanings. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s 1977 outreach to Israel led Rauf to write, “In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.” In a letter written after the 1979 Iranian revolution, he observed the American and Iranian revolution shared “the very principles of individual rights and freedom”. In Rauf’s response to the WSJ’s publication of his letters, he wrote, “As I re-read those letters now, I see that they express the same concerns—a desire for peaceful solutions in Israel, and for a humane understanding of Iran.”
- National Review Online: At NRO‘s The Corner blog, Benjamin Weinthal lays out a ‘reverse linkage’ — turning around the usual military/realist thinking that Israeli-Arab peace will help the U.S. deal with other regional issues. He writes, “To bring about peace with longevity between the Palestinians and Israel, the Obama administration has to confront Iran, which means promoting democracy in Iran and terminating its nuclear-weapons program.” Weinthal asserts, “if the sanctions prove impotent, Obama will then have to turn to serious saber-rattling and lay out a blueprint for military intervention.” The statement rehashes the catchphrase from the early 2000s that ‘the road to Mid East peace runs through Baghdad’ – only now it’s rerouted through Tehran.
- The New York Times: David Sanger writes about the linkages between Israeli-Palestinian peace, Iraq and Iran. He argues while other presidents have dealt with these linkages, Obama faces a new variation with U.S. forces pulling out of Iraq, tough sanctions on Iran and and the slow emergence of a working Palestinian government in the West Bank. With the withdrawal from Iraq, Obama can claim victory over that source of instability and, according to Sanger’s sources, progress on Iran. Sanger interviews WINEP cofounders Martin Indyk, the Vice President for Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Senior Mideast diplomat Dennis Ross, special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ross currently works out of the National Security Council, where he focuses on Iran, and has served in the past two administrations. Indyk and Ross agree sanctions have made progress in isolating and containing Iran. “We finally have leverage,” said Ross, pointing to talk from Iranian officials about the possibility of negotiations with the West.