December 12, 2013 | Quote
Treasury Department Tightens Iran Sanctions
The Treasury Department on Thursday tightened the economic screws on Iran by sanctioning a range of companies and individuals for their efforts to bolster Iran’s nuclear and WMD programs.
The crackdown comes as the Obama administration pushes Congress to hold off on passing a new round of economic sanctions on Iran that it argues could destroy a recently reached nuclear accord meant to temporarily freeze Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.
The additional sanctions will “target entities and individuals involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related materiel and attempts to evade international sanctions against Iran,” the Treasury Department announced in a statement.
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“This appears to be an olive branch by the executive to Congress, demonstrating their seriousness in enforcing existing sanctions while asking members to hold off on a new tranche of sanctions against Iran while the Geneva deal plays out,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department.
“These kinds of decisions are approved at the highest levels of the executive, through an inter-agency process,” Schanzer said. “This is, in other words, green lit by the president.”
While the latest designations by the Treasury Department will pressure Iran, they are not as powerful as a new round of sanctions, said Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
“The problem here is that we are merely plugging leaks in our existing sanctions regime,” he said. “We are not, however, able to deal with systemic shortcomings that could be addressed by a new round of sanctions from the legislative branch.”