Congress is ratcheting up pressure on the Trump administration to keep a watchful eye on Tehran, after the House approved an amendment last week requiring the president to inform lawmakers regularly of any efforts by Iran to ferry weapons and fighters using its commercial planes. The provision, which was included in the lower chamber’s defense policy bill, comes as the Treasury Department reviews licenses for the commercial jet sales and monitors Iran’s use of the planes.
The Obama administration enabled commercial aircraft sales under the nuclear deal, including one between Boeing and Iran Air: an airline that was sanctioned in 2011 for transporting weapons on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Trump Treasury Department told lawmakers in June that it would be on the lookout for any illicit uses of the aircraft, according to a letter obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
“Our case-by-case licensing policy is intended to ensure that aircraft that are licensed to Iranian end users will be used exclusively for commercial passenger aviation,” a Treasury official wrote in the letter. “To this end, we continue to carefully review license applications and monitor Iranian activity. We will also carefully consider any evidence that calls into question the commercial passenger nature of any end user activity.” Licenses for the planes are conditional on Iran using the aircraft exclusively for commercial passenger purposes.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin also said in May that the administration is reviewing commercial aircraft licenses, including those for Boeing and Airbus.
But lawmakers are ensuring that the administration is held to its word. Under an amendment to the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act, Trump must report to lawmakers every 180 days on Iran’s use of commercial aircraft for illicit activities. That includes any material, financial, or technological support provided to the Assad regime, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the IRGC, among other groups.
“Congress is watching midnight flights take off from military bases in Iran and land in war-torn Damascus carrying terrorists, guns, and explosives, which will only be used to shed more innocent blood in the Syrian civil war,” said Illinois congressman Peter Roskam, who crafted the amendment with Colorado congressman Doug Lamborn.
The Senate version of the NDAA includes language to Lamborn’s amendment, requiring the Pentagon to assess annually “the use of civilian transportation infrastructure and assets … used to transport illicit military cargo to or from Iran.” The upper chamber’s armed services committee marked up its bill in late June.
Iran uses commercial planes to shuttle troops and weapons to the Bashar al-Assad regime and lend military support to Hezbollah, according to Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Clearly, the bulk of transport occurs on commercial aircraft, which in many cases are repurposed for commercial flights once the planes return to Tehran,” Ottolenghi wrote in congressional testimony in April. “Flight tracking data indicate that, when all commercial airlines participating in the airlifts are considered, from Implementation Day on January 16, 2016 to March 30, 2017 there were a total of 690 flights from Iran to Syria.” Iran Air operated 114 of those flights, he reported.
The practice is not a new one. A 2011 fact sheet detailing the Treasury Department’s Iran Air designation warned that the company used commercial flights “to transport missile or rocket components to Syria.”
“Rockets or missiles have been transported via Iran Air passenger aircraft, and IRGC officers occasionally take control over Iran Air flights carrying special IRGC-related cargo,” the release read.
