Domestic politics drives US sanctions on Iran

Tougher sanctions and an anti-diplomacy approach to Iran can only lead to eventual military confrontation, writes the National Iranian American Council policy director

In a dramatic demonstration of the domestic political pressure driving Iran policy in the United States, the House of Representatives this week voted to impose legal restrictions against diplomacy with Iran. The approved legislation sets limitations regarding whom US government officials may and may not speak to in the Iranian government – Iranian officials who represent a "threat to the United States" or who are affiliated with terrorist organizations would legally be off limits to US officials.

The bill, approved overwhelmingly by Republicans and Democrats alike, is not a far cry from measures passed recently by Iran's parliament to cut off ties with Britain – part of Iran's own domestic political competition between Ahmadinejad and his rivals. Diplomacy between the US and Iran hardly needs any more roadblocks. But while the measure is likely un-constitutional and potentially unenforceable, it is a political shot across the bow against President Barack Obama's policy of leveraging unrequited US openness to engagement with Tehran to build international support for pressure on the country.

The bill also strips the president of his humanitarian waiver authority to allow repairs and parts for Iranian civilian aircraft to minimise the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iranians. In the past decade, more than 1,000 people have died in Iranian plane crashes, and the House effectively has warned the White House against taking any action to reduce those numbers. Ironically, the state department recently unveiled a "virtual embassy" for Iran, one of the goals of which is to "encourage travel" by Iranians to the United States – particularly Iranian students. House efforts making such travel more dangerous will not help the cause.

But while the House's sanctions bill must now clear the Senate before moving forward, both chambers also acted this week to pass a defence bill that includes a mandate for sanctions on Iran's central bank and its oil sector. That bill will be sent to the president, despite public objections, and he is expected to grudgingly sign it into law. The White House – concerned such sanctions could provoke an oil spike that would unravel the precarious global economy and fragment an already fragile international consensus on Iran – mounted a last minute campaign to convince Congress against forcing the sanctions on Iran's central bank.

Those efforts, which included sending top administration officials to testify on Capitol Hill about the economic ramifications of a sudden oil embargo on Iran, were ultimately unsuccessful. They did, however, earn the president some additional leeway regarding the type of punitive measures he must now impose against foreign countries and companies who do business with Iran through its central bank.

But the administration's public pushback also played into a political narrative being advanced by neoconservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute and the Emergency Committee to Save Israel, who say Obama is unwilling to confront Iran and is not a "true friend" of Israel. Ahead of a re-election in which Obama has few national security and foreign policy liabilities, it is an attack that the Obama campaign may fear is sticking. It may be no coincidence that the sanctions the president is being pressured to take in order to disprove this perception are ones that could raise gas prices in the US, and drive Europe and the global economy into recession. It is the economy, not foreign policy, where President Obama is most vulnerable.

Democrats – also fearful of the perception of being "weak" on Iran and not friendly enough on Israel – have been cowed by the neoconservative attacks and have largely given the pro-war crowd a free pass. Hence, hawks on the Hill, Republican presidential contenders, and right-wing pundits have largely been undeterred from advocating provocative actions against Iran, removed from the responsibility of having to clean up the consequences and freed from the burden of a political counter narrative. Mitt Romney was the latest GOP candidate to excoriate the president for not taking military action to destroy or recover the spy drone that was recently downed in Iran. Romney called the president "extraordinarily weak and timid" for not taking military action, parroting none other than former vice-president Dick Cheney, who similarly urged for a strike.

A strike or incursion into Iran would have been a step that could very well have set off a retaliatory chain reaction igniting all-out war in the region. Yet many in the president's party – including those who acceded to the Bush Administration's drive into war with Iraq – did not respond to the rhetoric, beyond advocating "tougher" sanctions. Such a policy only differs from the pro-war policy superficially. It is still rooted in a pressure-only, anti-diplomacy approach that – regardless of the speed at which it advances – can only lead to eventual military confrontation.

Jamal Abdi is policy director at the National Iranian American Council