Congress Takes a Shot Across the Iranian Bow

In August there was a lot of talk about the potential of Congressional action against Iran, specifically in the form of sanctions. Congress has taken action by voting to step up the pressure on Iran. HR 1400 passed this afternoon 397-16. Four Republicans and 12 Democrats voted against the measure, with 20 Members not voting.

The next step in increasing Sanctions on Iran is a revised Senate amendment to the 2008 Defense bill, Amendment No. 3017. The Iran Nuclear Watch blog has the amendment details.

The amendment has several pieces in it worth reading, in particular these three:

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States National power inside Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments in support of the policy with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

And

(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and

And

(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.

It is interesting to note that Congress is leading the push to label the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. It will probably not be reported in the media that way.

It is unclear if sanctions will work, they don't have a very good track record. To even be effective, they would have to be leveraged against some fairly big European companies, which may or may not be worth it. Considering the rhetoric of Sarkozy, if we have to piss off Europe to prevent war, I'm probably for pissing off Europe.