The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. imposes new sanctions against Iran
Latest actions aim to cut off leaders’ access to financial resources.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, warning that U.S. “restraint” has limits, signed an executive order Monday imposing additional economic sanctions on Iran in apparent retaliation for the downing of a U.S. drone last week.
Trump said the new “hard-hitting” sanctions will deny Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top officials access to financial resources.
“We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran,” Trump said in an Oval Office signing ceremony attended by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
“We do not seek conflict with Iran or any other country,” Trump added. “I think a lot of
restraint has been shown by us, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to show it in the future.”
The latest round of sanctions denies Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior military figures access to financial resources and blocks their access to any financial assets they have under U.S. jurisdiction. “For people who say these are just symbolic, that’s not the case at all,” Mnuchin said. “We’ve literally locked up tens and tens of billions of dollars.”
But critics said the new sanctions would have little substantive effect and could further inflame tensions.
“Symbolic politics at its worst,” said Robert Malley, the president and chief executive of the International Crisis Group and a former senior Obama administration official on the Mideast. “At every level it is illogical, counterproductive or useless.”
The inflation rate in Iran has risen to about 50 percent and many Iranians are dissatisfied with the economy, but its authoritarian leaders have historically shown they can withstand stress from sanctions for many years. Some Iranian citizens also blame the United States government for the devastation of their economy, and they point to the shortage of critical medicine, even though Trump administration officials say they do not intend to limit humanitarian aid.
Asked by a reporter whether the new sanctions were a response to Iran’s downing of a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz last week, Trump said that “you could probably add that into this.” But then he said, “This is something that was going to happen anyway.”
Trump spoke after Iran’s navy chief warned the United States on Monday that Iranian forces could shoot down more surveillance drones if they violate the country’s airspace. Those comments were made as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf.
“The enemy dispatched its most sophisticated … and most complicated surveillance aircraft” to spy on Iran, and “everyone saw the downing of the drone,” Iranian Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi said Monday, referring to the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk drone shot down by Iran on Thursday.
The incident capped a week of tensions following attacks on two commercial tankers near the Strait of Hormuz on June 13. The United States blamed the tanker attacks on Iran, which has denied involvement.
Khanzadi said the downing of the drone could “always be repeated, and the enemy knows it,” the Tasnim News Agency reported.
The naval commander’s remarks came amid a diplomatic push by the Trump administration to rally regional and other allies around what Pompeo described Sunday as a “global coalition” to confront Iran.
In his Oval Office remarks, Trump complained that a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six worlds powers, including the United States, “wasn’t properly done.” He added that Khamenei, the supreme leader, has said “he doesn’t want nuclear weapons,” which Trump called “a great thing to say.” Referring to the prospect of new nuclear negotiations, Trump went on: “If that’s the case, we can do something very quickly.”
In fact, Khamenei has asserted for years that Iran neither needs nor wants nuclear weapons, and he has declared such arms forbidden by Islam. Reflecting that position, the nuclear accord negotiated under the Obama administration says in its first paragraph: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
In two incidents in May and June that have raised tensions with Iran, six commercial vessels were targeted in attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil shipments.
Pompeo met Monday with the Saudi leader, King Salman, “to discuss heightened tensions in the region and the need to promote maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said on Twitter.
Several Arab states in the Persian Gulf have pinned their security on U.S. military prowess in the region.
But Trump lamented Monday on Twitter that the United States was “protecting the shipping lanes” in the strait “for other countries … for zero compensation.”
“All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been … a dangerous journey,” he said, adding that China and Japan get most of their energy imports through the strait.
“We don’t even need to be there,” Trump said, citing energy production in the United States.