Obama Imposes Harsher Sanctions on Iran

Katherine Greenberg — July 2, 2010 – 11:58 am | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Iran | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

Last night, President Barack Obama signed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act into law, which imposes harsher sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear weapons amibitions. Congressional leaders and representatives of several pro-Israel groups, including NJDC, attended the event during which Obama stated:

This legislation strengthens existing sanctions, authorizes new ones and supports our multilateral diplomatic strategy to address Iran’s nuclear programs. ... It says to companies seeking procurement contracts with the United States government—if you want to do business with us, you first have to certify that you’re not doing prohibited business with Iran.

The main provisions of these sanctions include:

• Requiring American banks to prohibit or impose strict conditions on “correspondent” or “payable through” accounts of any foreign banks working with key Iranian entities.
• Penalties for U.S. banks if their foreign subsidiaries do business with the Revolutionary Guard or its affiliates.
• Worldwide sanctions for any company that exports gasoline or other refined petroleum products to Iran, or for providing goods or services that enable Iran’s expanding output of these products

The new laws reach far beyond the previous measures that only apply to American companies. The new laws also augment the sanctions recently passed by the U.N. Security Council and European Union.

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