State Dept. Officials Wary Of Sanctioning Iran's Central Bank

As the US Senate is expected to approve legislation by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) to cut off the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from the global financial system as early as this Thursday, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen warn that such a move could unintentionally benefit Iran since it is not a concerted international effort.

“Sanctions are always more effective when they are multilateral,” Sherman testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee. “Iran is no exception.”

The  Menendez-Kirk legislation, an amendment to the military spending bill, would bar foreign financial institutions that purchase petroleum or petroleum products from the CBI from opening or maintaining correspondent operations in the US. While such legislation would freeze the CBI, Cohen and Sherman warn that it could inadvertently redound to Iran’s economic benefit.

“That threat, being focused on our closest allies, risks a dynamic with those governments and these banks, which is as likely to push them away and impede the ability to bring together a coordinated effort against Iran, as to generate it,” Cohen said. 

“We all agree with the impulse, the sentiment, the objective, which is to really go at the jugular of Iran’s economy,” Sherman further remarked.”[However,] there is absolutely a risk that in fact the price of oil would go up, which would mean that Iran would in fact have more money to fuel its nuclear ambitions, not less.”

“So what you’re really saying is,” Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in summation of Cohen and Sherman’s warning, “this is a very blunt instrument which risks adverse reaction, as opposed to a calculated, carefully orchestrated efforts that’s currently under way, and actually accomplish the very same end?”

“I think that’s exactly right,” Cohen replied. 

Bi-partisan Bill Gives Obama More Power Over Iran Sanctions

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Liberals and Conservatives stood together at a Senate press conference today to discuss the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act.

Senator Evan Bayh (R-Ind.) author of the bill, along with Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Senator Jon Kyl (D-Ind.), said that bi-partisanship had been achieved on this bill because of the “critical importance of this issue.”

The purpose of the legislation, which expands on the Iran Sanction of 1996, Lieberman said is, “to empower President Obama...by providing him with the explicit authority to target Iran’s achilles economic heel, which is its dependence on imports of petroleum...most notably gasoline.”

Lieberman accused previous legislation of being “quite ambiguous” and said that this legislation would “eliminate” that ambiguity. The new proposal would provide the President with a “powerful new weapon to use in the negotiations with Iran,” said Lieberman. Adding it is up to President Obama to decide, “when, where and against whom to use it.”

Bayh said the bill would help to “strengthen the President’s outreach” to Iran. Adding “if events continue go as they are currently going, then at some point during the next two to four years Iran will have a nuclear weapon”. This would have a “destabilizing” effect on the entire world,” said Bayh. This bill, he said, “gives us our best opportunity to avoid that outcome without the resort to military force.”

Kyl said the bill gives the President the tool to “stop companies who continue to sell refined gasoline to Iran or provide refining capacity from doing business in the United States or through the American banking systems.”

“In effect what we are saying to the few companies in the world who provide this refined gasoline to Iran is, ‘You can either do business in our $13 trillion economy with us, or you can do business with Iran with its $250 billion economy, but you can’t do both,’” said Kyl.

In closing Lieberman said, “this is important legislation introduced at a critical time whose consequences for the people of America, Iran, Israel and the Arab world are going to be quite serious.” Adding that he hoped this bill would make it “more likely” for the “diplomatic engagements” between President Obama and the Irani government to succeed and that “they will peacefully abandon their nuclear ambitions.”

Twenty-five U.S. Senators, from both parties, have currently signed their name as a co-sponsors to this piece of legislation.

Hoyer: Democrats are for drilling

"Democrats are for drilling," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D- Md.) Hoyer explained that House Democrats agree with the public's desire to devote resources to oil drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), oil reserves in the continental United States, and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (not to be confused with Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--ANWR-- in Alaska.) Hoyer said that the disagreements between Democrats and Republicans arise from where to drill for more oil. "If there's a place to drill, let's drill," he said referencing acres of the OCS that have already been leased to oil companies. Democrats don't necessarily want to drill where Republicans want, he said.

Hoyer said that while the price of oil per barrel has gone down almost $30, the price at the pump has not gone down to where the pain is not felt by his constituents. Hoyer also suggested that drilling in ANWR was something that Republicans are enthusiastic about, but that oil companies may not be. "I don't know that oil companies have contacted me about ANWR, I don't know, maybe they are not interested in drilling there," Hoyer said.

Hoyer also implied that Republicans are simply paying "lip service" to the causes of renewable and alternative sources of energy, when he cited a quote from Maryland Republican Roscoe Bartlett who was quoted in the Politico as saying of Republicans, "They're giving lip service to [alternative energy]...The only thing they emphasize is drilling."