Iran is headed for a multibillion-dollar windfall after international sanctions are lifted over the next few months, and Republicans in Congress are still looking for a way to block that from happening.
Concerns that Tehran will take the money and run away from the nuclear deal it reached in July with six world powers have been fueled by recent statements and actions by Iranian officials, along with what critics say is the Obama administration’s failure so far to keep its pledge to confront Iranian behavior that threatens the interests of the United States and its allies.
Most recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency said last week in a report that Iran had experimented with trying to build a nuclear weapon, but not since 2009. Acceptance of the report by the agency’s board is one of the triggers for sanctions relief, and lawmakers were not happy that it indicated Tehran had been deceiving international inspectors about the intentions of its nuclear program, seeing that as a bad omen for verification of Iran’s commitments under the deal.
“The IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program finally proves that Iran lied about never having attempted to develop nuclear weapons and that the Iranian supreme leader’s fatwa against nuclear weapons development is a fraud,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan.
Though administration officials said the agency’s report cleared the way for the United States and its allies to move forward with implementing the deal, in which Iran gets sanctions relief in exchange for limiting its nuclear program, lawmakers are working on a variety of measures that would limit or bar President Obama from doing so. It’s unclear whether they will succeed, since past efforts have been thwarted by opposition from the White House and most Democrats. But supporters are hopeful that Iran’s recent behavior may sway enough votes in their direction this time.
“I think that this will only increase the number of people who understand the risk of moving forward” with sanctions relief, Pompeo told the Washington Examiner. “They’ll begin to realize that Congress must take action.”
“We have enormous misgivings,” added Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., who said after meeting leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia earlier this month that many U.S. allies in the region share them.
The House already has adopted a resolution by Pompeo and Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., that attempted to create a legal means to block Obama from waiving sanctions against Iran, along with a bill by Peter Roskam, R-Ill., that would rescind the president’s authority to do so. But the White House ignored the resolution and Senate Democrats have blocked the legislation from consideration in that chamber.
Meanwhile, Republican Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Marco Rubio of Florida, along with Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have offered a resolution “to reaffirm congressional support for continued sanctions by state and local governments in the United States against Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, human rights violations, and other illicit behavior.” A companion measure also has been introduced in the House.
Though the nuclear deal does not bar such sanctions, it commits the administration to discouraging them from being adopted and implemented.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meanwhile, plans a hearing this month on the IAEA report and its implications for the deal as part of an aggressive oversight plan to ensure Iranian compliance.
Lawmakers also are concerned that the Obama administration has so far failed to push back against Iran’s global support for terrorism, its proxy war against Israel and imperial ambitions in the Middle East that have prompted Tehran’s intervention in Syria’s civil war and support for Shiite militias and insurgencies in Arab countries allied with Washington.
Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee are circulating draft legislation by Democrat Brad Sherman of California that would tighten sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been the main arm of the Shiite Muslim theocracy’s imperialist ambitions in the Middle East, by targeting companies that do business with it.
The organization also is in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile program, which in October tested a new, longer-range missile that could be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.The administration has for years ignored calls from Congress to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization, though it’s covered under sanctions applied to Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Ali Alfoneh, an expert on the IRGC at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the panel at a hearing last Wednesday that the IRGC will be the principal financial beneficiary of sanctions relief under the deal. The organization controls more than $17 billion in assets of companies registered on the Tehran stock exchange, including Iran’s largest construction contractor, he said.
What that means is even if most of the billions of dollars Iran is expected to receive once sanctions are lifted goes into economic development, as the administration expects, the IRGC will get much of that money. And that’s on top of what even administration officials admit will be an increased ability to support terrorism due to the lifting of sanctions.
“We have yet to see any effective strategy from the administration to push back against the IRGC’s regional advances,” said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif.
