Lawmakers push White House to tighten screws on Iran

The Washington Post - Congressional leaders prodded the Obama administration Wednesday to tighten the squeeze on Iran’s economy, saying even last year’s dramatic sanctions against Iranian banks and oil companies weren’t enough to stop the Islamic republic’s nuclear advances.

At a Senate hearing on Iran, exasperated lawmakers suggested that a military show of force may be needed to persuade Iran to accept limits on its nuclear program.

“While the sanctions are working, they aren’t enough, and they aren’t working fast enough,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during questioning of two of the administration’s top advisers on its Iran policy.

Menendez called on the White House to “double down” on Iran on multiple fronts, possibly including by “increasing military pressure against Iran.”

The hearing, one of two Wednesday to focus on the policy, was a chance for lawmakers to vent frustration over the failure so far to secure a nuclear deal with Iran despite five rounds of international negotiations and some of the most draconian economic sanctions ever imposed in peacetime.

Sanctions put in place last summer have reduced Iran’s oil exports by a million barrels a day — at a cost of up to $5 billion a month to Iran’s economy — while cutting the value of the country’s currency in half. Despite the pressure, Iran has accelerated its expansion of a uranium-enrichment program that U.S. officials say is intended to give Iranian leaders nuclear weapons capability. Iran says the uranium is for peaceful nuclear energy.

Wendy Sherman, the State Department’s point person for nuclear negotiations with Iran, acknowledged that the administration’s diplomatic and economic initiatives have not achieved the desired result — yet.

“We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” said Sherman, the department’s undersecretary for political affairs. “Our preference is to resolve this through diplomacy. However . . . there should be no doubt that the United States will use all elements of American power to achieve that objective.”

Sherman and David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said new measures in the pipeline would further increase the strain on Iran’s economy in coming months. Those include regulations that will hamper Iran’s ability to collect hard currency or precious metals from foreign countries as payment for oil, as well as new curbs on Iran’s ability to sell refined petroleum products.

“We will continue to target Iran’s primary sources of export revenue,” Cohen told the panel.

Some senators at the hearing called on the administration to put more pressure on Iran’s remaining oil customers — chiefly China — to reduce or eliminate imports of Iranian crude. Sherman replied that China had substantially reduced its consumption of Iran oil and that talks were underway to lower imports further. But she cautioned against policies that could undercut international unity in blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“As we move forward, it will be critical that we continue to move together and not take steps that undo the progress made so far,” Sherman said. “Doing such would signal divisions to Iran that it could and likely would exploit.”