US Senate Advances Iran Sanctions Bill - Irrationality and the Illegal

Rasa - The antiquated part: The US Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to advance a bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran.

News ID: 430299

Date: 12 June 2017 - 23:02

RNA - The vote was 92-7 on a procedural motion to end debate on the Iran sanctions bill, clearing the way for a vote later on passage of the legislation – hours after at least 13 people were killed and scores more injured in ISIL-claimed terrorist attacks in Tehran.

The daftest part: Some senators had urged that the procedural vote be delayed, arguing that the timing was inappropriate because of the twin terrorist attacks in Iran. "The country has just suffered from two significant terrorist attacks after electing a moderate government with 57 percent of the vote — we need to give Iran the opportunity to recover and set a new course," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement.

The Iran sanctions measure will come up for a vote soon. The moot is that the legislation would impose new sanctions over what they say is Iran’s ballistic missile development, support for resistance groups and human rights violations. To become law, the measure would also have to pass the Republican-led House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump. On that order:

1- While the antiquated sanctions regime has been through several iterations in the intervening decades, the general tenor of the US position toward Iran is a hardline not-in-my-Persian-Gulf-region approach. The official position is outdated, hypocritical, and counterproductive.

2- The embargo was inaugurated by a Reagan administration executive order in 1980 as a response to the Islamic Revolution. The current incarnation of the sanctions regime – codified primarily in the Iran Sanctions Act – aims at protecting Israel and appeasing Arab allies through economic sanctions, travel restrictions, and international legal penalties.

3- Since the historic nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, the Iranian government has undertaken many commitments and the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is moving in the right direction. Despite this progress, the US spends massive amounts of money trying to keep Iran out of international trade. Several different agencies are responsible for enforcing different provisions of what they call the non-nuclear embargo, and according to the Government Accountability Office, Washington devotes hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours to administering the non-nuclear embargo each year.

4- At present, the US is largely alone in restricting access to Iran. The condemnable embargo has long been a point of friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Asia. For this, the US has been publically condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counterproductive and worn out trade restrictions against Iran despite the fact that nearly all UN members want to do business with Iran.

5- What’s worse, since American companies cannot travel and conduct business in Iran unimpeded, the unilateral sanctions are rather toothless. Restrictions on trade disproportionately affect US small businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skirt the embargo. These restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for ordinary Americans in states where the unemployment rate is currently high.

Which, of course, begs the question: Why is the political class in Washington going after illegal embargos, when Iran is fighting terrorism in Iraq and Syria, the world community has condemned the recent terror attacks in Tehran, and Iran is a democracy whose government is elected through public vote.

The cost of the embargo to the United States is high in both legal and moral terms, but it is higher for its cash-strapped companies and people – all because of an antiquated colonialist mentality. A perpetual embargo on a nation that has been and still is a victim of international terrorism, is fighting terrorism and extremism in Iraq and Syria, and has never invaded any country in modern history, makes no sense, especially when America’s European allies are openly hostile to the illegal restrictions. It makes no economic sense to anyone. It is time for the senseless sanctions regime to go.

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