Iranian officials who play a role in the abuse of protesters against the regime could face sanctions from the United States, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s team warned Thursday.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the deaths to date and the arrests of at least one thousand Iranians,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a press statement. “We have ample authorities to hold accountable those who commit violence against protesters, contribute to censorship, or steal from the people of Iran.”
That reminder comes days before President Trump must make a decision about whether to renew a suite of sanctions waived by former President Barack Obama under the terms of the Iran nuclear deal. But the administration has an array of other options for reacting to a crackdown quite apart from those sanctions, experts say.
“There are a number of executive orders that are available to the president, including executive orders that cover human rights that could be used to sanction whatever Iranian entities or individual we choose under those authorities,” Philip Gordon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told reporters during a Thursday conference call.
There’s also a new raft of Iran sanctions passed by Congress last summer, which could presage new punitive measures against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“The Treasury Department was supposed to have kind of a detailed map out about how to implement those [sanctions] by January, early in the year at the latest,” Ray Takeyh, another Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, added on the same call. “The president can certainly draw on that latest law, in terms of that.”
Nauert didn’t provide any detail on what action would be taken.
“We support these legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people, and call on the government to allow the free exchange of ideas and information,” she said. “To the regime’s victims, we say: You will not be forgotten.”
