Posted on 10/25/2007 2:08:27 PM PDT by blam
US imposes strict economic sanctions on Iran
By Toby Harnden in Washington and Damien McElroy
Last Updated: 7:45pm BST 25/10/2007
The United States has announced its toughest action against Iran since the aftermath of the 1979 revolution by instituting a raft of unilateral sanctions.
The unprecedented steps are designed to cut international financial support to Teheran's theocratic regime as well as targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp, which is accused of supporting Shia insurgents in Iraq.
Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, announce the sanctions
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Henry Paulson, the US treasury secretary, said the actions were being taken in response to Teheran's interference in Iraq and its refusal to abandon uranium enrichment.
Although Miss Rice insisted that a "diplomatic solution" to the differences between Iran and the West was possible, she described the actions as part of a decision "to confront the threatening behaviour of the Iranians".
She said that American officials accepted that they would exacerbate already rising tensions between Washington and Teheran.
Iran, she said, was "pursuing nuclear technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon, building dangerous ballistic missiles, supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israeli off the map".
The sanctions will cut off from the US financial system more than 20 organisations owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. This will make it very difficult for them to operate through the international banking system.
Hundreds of foreign companies could be affected by leaving them with the choice to end their dealing with Iran or face sanctions from the US.
The measures are the most sweeping by the US against Iran since the US Embassy in Teheran was seized in November 1979, nine months after the fall of the Shah's regime.
The Revolutionary Guard forms the largest component of Iran's armed forces and has a strength running into the hundreds of thousands. It controls large sections of the Iranian economy and, according to US officials, operates front companies that deal in nuclear technology.
Along with the Iranian defence ministry, it has been designated a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.
The Guard's Quds Force, its foreign operations branch believed to number up to 15,000, was declared a "global terrorist group".
US officials say that Quds operatives provide arms and training for Hizbollah and Hamas as well as supplying insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia said that new sanctions would lead to a "dead end".
America's decision to impose unilateral penalties was a tacit admission that another sanctions resolution is unlikely to win Security Council approval due to Russian and Chinese opposition.
Britain and France have also quietly accepted this and are now trying to secure European Union counter-measures against Iran.
I really hate and loathe the UN and wish we would get out and just stand on our own. Let’s see the Soviets and Chinese stop us.
The unprecedented steps ...
How can they be the toughest SINCE 1979 and unprecedented? Wouldn't that make 1979 the precedent??
The first shoe has dropped. It will all be a matter of time. We all know that Iran is not going to change course from acquiring a nuke.
Sanctions sure worked against Castro.
And when we leave, who is going to veto all the condemnations of Israel in the UN Security Council? Running away shouldn’t be a solution to our problems.
Condemnations are just more paper from the UN, and meaningless, as is the entire institution.
Not when they are backed by sanctions from the voting members.
Opening move.
Now there are sanctions against Iran? I'm sure Iran is shaking in their boots.
Akme whatever: "oh holy imam, we have sanctions, what should I do?"
It's a farce, it's a joke..Nothing will happen...
We become their sole protector and partners, as it always has been.
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