Congress passes Iran sanctions

Congress on Thursday overwhelmingly passed the conference report on the Iran sanctions bill.

The House passed the bill on a vote of 408-8 Thursday evening. The Senate, with a vote of 99-0 earlier Thursday, also cleared the legislation. Now President Barack Obama just has to sign the bill for it to become law.

{mosads}“The world has watched as Iran has oppressed its own people,
violated United Nations resolutions, challenged America and threatened
Israel,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in remarks
from the Senate floor. “The Senate is taking an important step forward
today as we pass a conference report that will impose tough new
sanctions on Iran. We are passing these sanctions because we believe we
must stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon — a weapon that would
surely threaten the national security of the United States and of
Israel.”

The votes in the House and Senate follow Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep.
Howard Berman (D-Calif.), co-chairmen of the bill’s conference
committee, announcing an agreement earlier this week on how to merge
the House and Senate bills together.

The bill takes aim at Iran’s refined petroleum sector. Businesses
that help supply Iran with refined petroleum or help develop the
country’s own refining capacity would be penalized by the legislation.

In
addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps comes under more scrutiny. Any
financial institutions found to be doing business with the Guard or
with blacklisted Iranian banks could be denied access to the U.S.
financial system under the bill.

Passage of the conference report on the Hill comes after the
White House was able to win the support of China and Russia for a new round
of United Nations-endorsed sanctions against Iran. The Obama
administration wanted Congress to wait on their own sanctions bill
while the president negotiated with international allies to come down
harder on Iran.

Pro-Israel lobbying groups have been pushing hard for a new round
of sanctions against Iran and will see victory in the congressional votes
Thursday. The sanctions bill also comes about a year after Iran’s last
presidential election, which was alleged to be fraudulent and greeted
by street protests in Tehran and elsewhere.