Outstanding testimony by Mark Dubowitz on the Iran sanctions removal. HT:
Mark Dubowitz
Compromising the integrity of the U.S. and global financial system to conclude a limited
agreement with North Korea neither sealed the deal nor protected the system. The
JCPOA appears to repeat this same mistake by lifting financial restrictions on bad banks
without certifications that Iran’s illicit finance activities have ceased.
The JCPOA stipulates that of the nearly 650 entities that have been designated by
the U.S. Treasury for their role in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs or for being
owned or controlled by the government of Iran, more than 67 percent will be delisted
from Treasury’s blacklists within 6-12 months. This includes the Central Bank
of Iran and most major Iranian financial institutions.
After eight years, only 25 percent of
the entities that have been designated by Treasury over the past decade will remain
sanctioned. Many IRGC businesses that were involved in the procurement of material for
Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs will be de-listed as will some of the worst
actors involved in Iran’s nuclear weaponization activities.
Even worse, the EU* will lift all
of its economic sanctions on Iran,
which were all established only on nuclear grounds,
including on the notorious Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. (MFS: The same people who removed HAMAS from terror list).
As discussed
below, this will enable the IRGC to treat Europe as an economic free zone.
What is especially notable about the lifting of designations is that the Obama
administration has provided no evidence to suggest that these individuals, banks, and
businesses are no longer engaging in the full range of illicit conduct on which the original
designations were based. What evidence, for example, is there for the de-designation of
the Central Bank of Iran, which is the main financial conduit for the full range of Iran’s
illicit activities, and how does a nuclear agreement resolve its proven role in terrorism
and ballistic missile financing, money laundering, deceptive financial activities, and
sanctions evasion? In other words, with the dismantlement of much of the Iran sanctions
architecture in the wake of a nuclear agreement, the principle upon which Treasury
created the sanctions architecture—the protection of the global financial system—is no longer the standard.
The JCPOA obligates the United States, European Union, and United Nations to lift
sanctions at two specific intervals: On “Implementation Day” when the IAEA verifies
that Iran has implemented its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA to reduce its
operating centrifuges, reduce its low-enriched uranium stockpile, and modify the Arak
heavy-water reactor, among other requirements; and on “Transition Day” in eight years
or when the IAEA has reached a “broader conclusion” that Iran’s nuclear program is
entirely peaceful, whichever comes first.
This last clause is critical: Even if the IAEAcannot verify the peaceful nature of Iran’s program, Iran will receive additional
sanctions relief.
The JCPOA will provide Iran with more than $100 billion in sanctions relief, if you
include the funds reportedly tied up in oil escrow accounts, and as much as $150 billion
based on figures quoted by President Obama,
which presumably includes funds that are
legally frozen and those to which banks have been unwilling to provide Iran free access,
even though they weren’t under formal sanctions.
These funds could flow to the coffers
of terrorist groups and rogue actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
Iraqi Shiite militias, the Houthis in Yemen, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s
regime in Damascus. President Obama has claimed the money would not be a “gamechanger”
for Iran.
As Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, however, stated in a speech less
than one week after the JCPOA announcement, “
We shall not stop supporting our friends
in the region: The meek nation of Palestine, the nation and government of Syria … and
the sincere holy warriors of the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine*.”
This infusion of
cash will relieve budgetary constraints for a country which had only an estimated $20
billion in fully accessible foreign exchange reserves prior to November 201315 but was
spending at least $6 billion annually to support Assad.
Conclusions.
As a result of restrictions that sunset on its nuclear program, ballistic missile program,
access to heavy weaponry, and ballistic missile development, Iran over time will be
permitted not only to maintain its current nuclear capacity, but also to develop it further
to an industrial-sized nuclear program with a near-zero breakout time, an easier-to-hide
and more efficient advanced-centrifuge-powered clandestine sneak-out pathway, and
multiple heavy-water reactors.
Iran will be able to buy and sell heavy weaponry with the
expiration of the arms embargo, bolstering IRGC military capabilities and arming the
most destabilizing and dangerous regimes and terrorism organizations.
Iran will also be
able to access key technologies to further develop its long-range ballistic missile
program, including for the building of an ICBM that threatens the United States.
At the same time, the JCPOA dismantles much of the international sanctions architecture,
while abandoning the core principles of the conduct-based sanctions regime that the
Obama and George W. Bush administrations built up over more than a decade.
The
unraveling of the U.S. and EU sanctions regimes leaves Iran as a growing economy
increasingly immunized against future economic sanctions snapbacks. It provides Iran
with $150 billion in early sanctions relief and hundreds of billions of dollars in future
relief with which the leading state of terrorism can continue to fund its dangerous
activities. Of great concern, the JCPOA provides Iran with a “nuclear snapback” to
intimidate Europe, the United States, and other countries, to refrain from using sanctions
as an effective mechanism to enforce the nuclear agreement and to target the full range of
its illicit conduct including its support for terrorism.
The JCPOA is a fundamentally flawed deal in its inherent design. Congress should
require the Obama administration to renegotiate and fix the major flaws of the agreement
and resubmit an amended JCPOA to Congress for review.
Simultaneously, Congress
should defend the economic sanctions architecture it helped create and tie all future
sanctions relief to verifiable changes in Iranian conduct that prompted the sanctions in the
first place. Read the full report (Pdf)
here.
* Highly respected figure such as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, who is widely admired by Palestinians in Gaza.
