Berman Resists Pressure to Weaken Iran Sanctions Measure

Rep. Howard Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, vowed to resist pressure from the Obama administration to weaken legislation intended to isolate the Central Bank of Iran.

“I will not — and Congress should not — give in to entreaties from the administration or elsewhere to dilute our approach to sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran’s petroleum transactions,” Berman said today at a conference sponsored by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy group in Washington.

The group has pressed Congress and the White House to support sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and banking sectors in an effort to cripple Iran’s economy and persuade the regime to drop its suspected nuclear weapons program. …

Supporters of sanctions on Iran’s central bank say such measures would significantly impede the country’s ability to export oil. The Central Bank of has become a vital intermediary for purchasers of Iranian crude because existing sanctions against the Persian Gulf country have constrained Iran’s ability to access the international financial sector to settle oil trades, said Mark Dubowitz, director of the Iran Energy Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. 

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