Iran on Notice
Prez, Congress to crack down on terror state
AMERICAN pressure on Iran is about to resume.
It all but disappeared as President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry gave away one concession after another in the run-up to the completion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the Iran nuclear deal — in 2015. Such pressure never really got going again, since Obama wanted Iran’s cooperation in implementing the deal and then flinched at anything the Iranians might use as a pretext to walk away from the agreement.
President Trump may not be quite ready to tear that deal up, as he promised on the campaign trail, but his administration has begun to heavily scrutinize Iranian behavior in the Middle East that undermines our strategic position and the security of our allies. And the next step, which officials are preparing to take, will be to rein in that mischief-making.
Remember how Iran-deal supporters sold the idea that, thanks to the nuclear deal, the mullahs would come in from the cold and moderate their behavior? Never happened.
Speaking at the United Nations last week, Ambassador Nikki Haley reminded everyone of existing Security Council resolutions that ban Iran from exporting or importing weapons, and that demand an end to missile testing. Also, she added, Iran continues to defy resolutions that ban arms sales to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Obama let such things slide. Haley indicated that Trump will not.
“The United States will work closely with our partners to document and address any actions that violate these resolutions,” Haley said. “We must take a stand against Iran and Hezbollah’s illegal and dangerous behavior.”
Some at the UN will push back, arguing the mullahs are keeping their end of the nuclear deal, which after all was en- dorsed by the Security Council. Well, maybe. A dissident group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, reported last week that Tehran is working on nuclear-related high explosives at Parchin, a military facility that under the nuclear deal is out of bounds for UN inspectors.
Even without Parchin, Trump argued last week that Iran is “not living up to the spirit of the nuclear agreement.” Yet, the State Department certified to Congress that Iran is in compliance with the letter of the JCPOA.
But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wasn’t quite ready to let the mullahs off the hook. Iran remains at the top of the State Department’s list of terror sponsors, he said, adding that a new review will evaluate if ending sanctions “is vital to the national-security interests of the United States.”
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives is preparing a new bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran for continuing its illicit missile program. A Senate bill would penalize Iran over its terrorism sponsorship.
But wait, wouldn’t a rush to unilateral punishment leave America all by our lonely self, as many allies, eager to do business with the newest members of the family of nations, resist reimposing international sanctions?
“The US has a lot of power,” says former administration official Anthony Rugierro, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. America can block access to world banking, he says, and force companies and institutions to choose between doing business with us or with them.
All of which was well known to Obama, who initially tightened US sanctions on Iran to help forge wider global ones. Then, eager to strike a deal, Obama ignored even the most egregious Iranian terrorist and proliferation activities.
As Politico reports this week, his administration released Iranian arms dealers in US custody and stopped pursuing international arrest warrants against others.
No more. New sanctions will likely “come to fruition after the [May 19] presidential election in Iran,” Israeli Minister of Intelligence Israel Katz told me this week.
Katz was in the states to make the case to members of Congress that renewed punishment against Iran and Hezbollah (“the most serious nonstate actor threatening my country”) will be welcomed not only in Jerusalem, but in most Sunni Arab capitals.
Washington should welcome it, too. Disregarding Obama’s iffy legacy project, mullahs of all stripes maintain their strict “death to America” stance. It’s time we stop accommodating and, yes, start punishing them.