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April 7, 2014

Is new House sanctions bill aimed at Iran?

As concerns remain over Congress passing new sanctions on Iran while talks are ongoing, one bill that received advanced coverage was the “Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act.” Prior to the bill’s introduction, there was concern that the bill would indirectly target Iran and re-characterize nuclear-related sanctions as terrorism-related sanctions, thus violating the spirit of the Joint Plan of Action.

However, the bill – which was introduced late last week – does not appear to directly target Iran and would not mandate the President to impose new sanctions on Iran. To a large extent, the bill’s provisions are redundant of existing sanctions on Hezbollah and its facilitators.

Under current law, Hezbollah is designated a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT), a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), and a designated supporter of the Assad regime in Syria (SYRIA). As such, these designations close Hezbollah and its affiliates off from the US financial system and empower the President to designate (and thus block the property of) those who he finds provide material assistance or sponsorship to the group. These are authorities which enabled the US, for instance, to designate one of the major Iranian banks, Bank Saderat, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2006, thus foreclosing its access to the US financial system.

The proposed Act would require the President, among other things, to cut off foreign financial institutions (including foreign central banks) that facilitate the activities of Hezbollah or facilitate significant transactions related to those activities from the US financial system and to decide on whether to designate Hezbollah both a Foreign Narcotics Trafficker and a Transnational Criminal Organization. The former provision (Section 103) is the most contentious element of the bill and could marginally limit the President’s discretion on whether to designate foreign financial institutions. But it is difficult to see what new authorities the bill provides the President that he does not possess at present.

While some in Congress may be eager to find new ways of sanctioning Iran, existing sanctions are so sweeping as to render the bill’s authorizations redundant. It remains to be seen, however, whether the bill is messaged by hardliners in Washington and Tehran as subtly re-characterizing ‘nuclear-related’ sanctions as terrorism-related sanctions and thus a violation of the preliminary deal.

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