Thursday
Jul302009
Senate Weighs Economic Sanctions Against Iran
Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 4:35PM
By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is weighing the possibility of levying economic sanctions against Iran. During a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the committee discussed ways to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former State Department official during the Bush administration, said that Iran’s hotly contested presidential election has compromised the power of its government, and that America “should seek to diminish its strength further.” He said that “Americans should seek to maintain our position as the dominant power in the Middle East, because our influence is positive in that region, and Iran’s is not.”
Burns said that President Obama has generally followed former President’s Bush “basic strategy” by trying to end the nuclear weapons project in Iran through negotiations before applying “draconian” economic sanctions. He said that he did not believe negotiations alone will successfully end Iran’s nuclear program, but said that financial, economic, and energy sanctions would be more effective.
Dr. Suzanne Maloney, a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, discussed the economic outlook in Iran. She said the country faces “serious economic problems: double-digit inflation, power shortages, a tumbling stock market, stubbornly high unemployment rates,...increasing dependence on volatile resource revenues, and perhaps most ominously for the Iranian leadership, a rising tide of popular indignation about economic frustrations.”
The panelists agreed that unilateral sanctions will not be effective unless other countries join in sanctions against Iran. “We alone in the United States don’t have the capacity to cripple the Iranian economy with our sanctions,” said Maloney. She argued that “multilateral steps represent the only real alternative to a negotiated solution.”
Testifying before the committee, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I- Conn.) praised an amendment added to the Defense Authorization bill, which passed last week. The amendment places a time limit on how long Iran would have to respond to U.S. requests for negotiation before sanctions would be imposed.
“This bill will basically say to companies worldwide who are selling gasoline to Iran, who are shipping it to Iran, or who are insuring or financing those shipments, you got a choice to make. You can continue what you are doing with Iran, or you can do business in the United States of America. You cannot do both,” said Sen. Lieberman. He said that the amendment would not force President Obama to act, but would grant him the authority of enacting economic sanctions.
Sen. Lieberman said that the amendment had bipartisan support. “No matter what may divide us on other issues, we are very united in our concern, our anger about the Iranian program of nuclear weapons development,” he said. “The greatest threat to peace is for Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability.”
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is weighing the possibility of levying economic sanctions against Iran. During a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the committee discussed ways to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former State Department official during the Bush administration, said that Iran’s hotly contested presidential election has compromised the power of its government, and that America “should seek to diminish its strength further.” He said that “Americans should seek to maintain our position as the dominant power in the Middle East, because our influence is positive in that region, and Iran’s is not.”
Burns said that President Obama has generally followed former President’s Bush “basic strategy” by trying to end the nuclear weapons project in Iran through negotiations before applying “draconian” economic sanctions. He said that he did not believe negotiations alone will successfully end Iran’s nuclear program, but said that financial, economic, and energy sanctions would be more effective.
Dr. Suzanne Maloney, a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, discussed the economic outlook in Iran. She said the country faces “serious economic problems: double-digit inflation, power shortages, a tumbling stock market, stubbornly high unemployment rates,...increasing dependence on volatile resource revenues, and perhaps most ominously for the Iranian leadership, a rising tide of popular indignation about economic frustrations.”
The panelists agreed that unilateral sanctions will not be effective unless other countries join in sanctions against Iran. “We alone in the United States don’t have the capacity to cripple the Iranian economy with our sanctions,” said Maloney. She argued that “multilateral steps represent the only real alternative to a negotiated solution.”
Testifying before the committee, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I- Conn.) praised an amendment added to the Defense Authorization bill, which passed last week. The amendment places a time limit on how long Iran would have to respond to U.S. requests for negotiation before sanctions would be imposed.
“This bill will basically say to companies worldwide who are selling gasoline to Iran, who are shipping it to Iran, or who are insuring or financing those shipments, you got a choice to make. You can continue what you are doing with Iran, or you can do business in the United States of America. You cannot do both,” said Sen. Lieberman. He said that the amendment would not force President Obama to act, but would grant him the authority of enacting economic sanctions.
Sen. Lieberman said that the amendment had bipartisan support. “No matter what may divide us on other issues, we are very united in our concern, our anger about the Iranian program of nuclear weapons development,” he said. “The greatest threat to peace is for Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability.”
Lieberman: Climate Change Threatens National Security
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that climate change presents a growing threat to the United States.
“The environmental concerns have merged with two other major American national interests. One is economic. The second coalescence is that climate change is a matter of national security,” Lieberman said during a panel discussion with the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, D.C.
Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, added that climate change does not threaten the stability of the U.S. alone.
“The Minister of Defense from Bangladesh is planning what they will have to do for the unrest that will occur if global warming is not checked and tides rise,” said Lieberman.
Lieberman noted that legislative changes would need to be enacted to offset the risks, conceding that while there is a resistance to change, the U.S. is making progress.
“This is not easy because of the change involved. And yet as the years have gone by the number of stake holders, including businesses that have come forward and said they want to be part of the change because they see it coming ... has grown.”