Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNEWSIRAN NEWSObama Admin Gutted Iran Ballistic Missile Embargo

Obama Admin Gutted Iran Ballistic Missile Embargo

The Obama administration gutted an international ballistic missile embargo on Iran as one of several concessions made when the Islamic Republic released four American prisoners in January, Iran experts tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD. This has triggered criticism that the administration misled Congress about its commitment to limiting Iran’s missile development.
In January the Obama administration allowed the United Nations Security Council to lift sanctions on Bank Sepah, aninstitution central to financing Iran’s missile program, as one part of what the Wall Street Journal revealed last week to be a series of “tightly scripted agreements” that included Iran’s release of American prisoners. The European Union quickly followed suit and removed its own restrictions on Bank Sepah, including a ban on the bank’s participation in the SWIFT network, which is required for participation in international finance.
Experts told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the administration’s decision to back the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Bank Sepah makes it all but impossible to enforce an international embargo meant to prevent Iran from developing ballistic missiles.
“The lifting of sanctions on Bank Sepah—what Treasury called the “financial linchpin of Iran’s missile procurement network”—effectively guts the international missile embargo,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “This UN embargo was intended to last eight years after the nuclear deal; it has crumbled in less than one.”
Administration officials had made enforcing the embargo a central part of their campaign to sell last summer’s nuclear deal on Capitol Hill.
“The current UNSCR [United National Security Council Resolution] prohibitions on the supply of ballistic missile-related items, technology and assistance will remain in place,” Wendy Sherman, then the State Department under secretary for political affairs, said during an August 2015 Senate hearing.
Other officials underscored the importance of the U.N. and EU sanctions, which were subsequently lifted on Bank Sepah, in constraining Iran.
“The sanctions on [Iran’s] arms trade, the sanctions on their acquisition of ballistic missile technology remain in place for many years to come under the U.N.,” Adam Szubin, Treasury Department under secretary for terrorism and financial Intelligence, said at the same hearing. “The EU has sanctions with respect to Iran’s bad activity outside the nuclear file. Terrorism, human rights, those sanctions would remain in place.”
A congressional source told TWS that the decision to lift U.N. sanctions on Bank Sepah contradicted the administration’s assurances:
“While the administration continues to insist that the JCPOA is nuclear focused, President Obama and Secretary Kerry are lifting all sorts of sanctions on Iran,” the source said, using an acronym for the Iran nuclear deal. “Missile sanctions on Bank Sepah? Gone. Missile sanctions on Iran Air? Gone. Promises made to Congress about the U.S. commitment to ‘maintain powerful sanctions targeting Iran’s….missile program?’ Evidently irrelevant.”
A State Department official told TWS this week that the administration felt “comfortable with [Bank Sepah’s] removal from the UN sanctions list” because it had previously removed some U.S. restrictions on the bank under the nuclear agreement.
The official added that the administration can “quickly reimpose U.S. sanctions” on Bank Sepah, and that “dozens of entities and individuals that are directly involved in Iran’s missile program remain subject to sanctions.”
Dubowitz told TWS that Treasury Department sanctions, levied on supporters of Iran’s ballistic missile program in the months following the Bank Sepah decision, are ineffective.
“Treasury’s missile sanctions against Iranian procurement networks are a highly ineffectual game of ‘Whac-a-Mole’ which allow sanction-busters to rapidly close and reopen shell companies,” he said.


Source: Weekly Standard, 05 Oct. 2016

RELATED ARTICLES

Selected

Latest News and Articles

Most Viewed

[custom-twitter-feeds]