The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, signed this month by the six world powers with Iran lifts a UN arms embargo by 2020, sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program by 2023, most nuclear restrictions by 2025, and a cap on low-enriched uranium stockpile by 2030. Most sanctions will be lifted immediately, with some residual measures left until 2023. The Obama administration often suggests that the deal may transform the Iranian regime from a revolutionary theocracy to a more moderate government that adheres to international norms. If that is the aim, why did the Obama administration agree to lift U.S. sanctions against the very hardliners the deal is supposed to marginalize?

A case in point is the Headquarters for the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order – also known as EIKO or Setad. In June 2013 the U.S. Treasury designated EIKO – which functions as the personal business empire of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei – and 37 of its subsidiaries, noting that its purpose is “to generate and control massive, off-the-books investments, shielded from the view of the Iranian people and international regulators.”