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Berman: Why we need to start the sanctions process now

By Eric Fingerhut · September 29, 2009

Over the weekend in the Washington Post, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) explained why he's pushing forward with Iran sanction legislation next month. He noted that he does back the president's efforts to talk to Iran's leadership:

I support President Obama's efforts to engage Iran. Thanks to these efforts, no one will be able to say that we failed to do everything possible to give Iran a diplomatic way out. But there is more than ample reason to be skeptical that the regime in Tehran intends to come clean about its nuclear program.

If engagement efforts fail, he writes:

...We should be ready immediately to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called "crippling sanctions." Iran's economy is in terrible shape, and the regime no longer can take for granted the support of its citizens. The best conduit for such sanctions would be a mandatory U.N. Security Council resolution. That would require the difficult-to-obtain acquiescence of Russia and China. Failing that, multilateral agreement by the Europeans, Japan, Australia and Canada to impose coordinated financial, trade and investment sanctions would be a serious alternative. If even that proves impossible, I believe the threat posed to our national security by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran obligates the United States to impose sanctions unilaterally.

The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which I, along with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced, provides such authority to act. The bill, which has more than 300 co-sponsors (its companion in the Senate has 75 co-sponsors), provides President Obama with a mandate to increase the level of financial penalties against Iran and would prevent companies that facilitate the provision of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran from doing business in the United States. Much of the world's trade is conducted through international financial transactions in dollars that must be cleared through American banks. So if the United States were to prevent any bank doing business with Iranian banks from clearing dollar transactions, the Iranian banking system would collapse. And because Iran has to import 25 percent or more of its daily demand for refined petroleum, its economy would be seriously impaired if it were denied those imports. Indeed, a credible threat of both these sanctions might provide the best chance to persuade the Iranian regime to agree to suspend its nuclear enrichment.

To have a sanctions bill ready for the president's signature by early next year, we must start the process for passing it now. I intend to bring our bill to committee for consideration next month. Should negotiations with Iran not succeed and should multilateral sanctions not get off the ground, we must be prepared to do what we can on our own.