por admin » Lun Jun 24, 2019 5:47 am
U.S. Plans New Iran Sanctions as Europe Tries to Defuse Tensions
President Trump, aides have indicated they are prepared to wait for the economic vise on Tehran to tighten further, but face calls at summits this week to show restraint
By Michael R. Gordon and Ian Talley in Washington and Laurence Norman in Brussels
Updated June 23, 2019 11:59 pm ET
The administration has ratcheted up economic pressure on Tehran since President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018, hoping to drive Iran to accept a tougher agreement that would end uranium enrichment and curb its regional ambitions.
In mounting its pressure campaign, the U.S. is seeking ultimately to drive the Islamic Republic’s oil exports to zero. It has more recently imposed sanctions on Iran’s industrial-metals sector and announced major sanctions on one of the country’s biggest petrochemical companies.
“We’ve done very massive sanctions. We’re increasing the sanctions now,” Mr. Trump told NBC over the weekend.
Iran had hoped to spook Mr. Trump and other nations into easing Washington’s financial and economic embargo that has shocked the nation’s economy, U.S. officials and analysts said.
Iranian leaders, those people said, are gambling Mr. Trump is so averse to a direct U.S. war with Iran that he will slow the pace of new sanctions, soften global enforcement and compromise on U.S. demands for a nuclear and security deal.
Newsletter Sign-up
But Mr. Trump’s decision to raise economic pressure further suggests he believes he can use sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table on U.S. terms without triggering a conflict.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected at the coming summit of leaders from Group of 20 nations in Japan to caution Mr. Trump against intensifying economic pressure, Western diplomats said.
Mr. Trump reiterated this weekend that he is willing to negotiate with Iran, after bucking many of his advisers by canceling a military strike in Iran on Thursday.
“When the Iranian regime decides to forgo violence and meet our diplomacy with diplomacy, it knows how to reach us,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Saturday, denying reports that the U.S. has used Oman to appeal for talks with Iran. “Until then, our diplomatic isolation and economic-pressure campaign against the regime will intensify.”
Underscoring the point that the U.S. isn’t easing up, American officials confirmed that the U.S. covertly launched offensive cyber operations against an Iranian intelligence group’s computer systems on Thursday.
John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national-security adviser and a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran, said during a visit to Israel that while Mr. Trump had decided to call off a military strike, the decision shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
“The administration is not really interested in negotiations now,” said Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department official who was involved in negotiations with Iranian officials during the Obama administration. “It wants to give sanctions more time to make the Iranians truly desperate, at which point it hopes the negotiations will be about the terms of surrender.”
Mr. Trump and his aides haven’t elaborated on what additional sanctions would look like. One possible channel for ratcheting up the pressure would be to penalize banks, insurers, traders or any other companies outside Iran that are still helping the country, a move supporters say would stifle the remaining flows of cash keeping the country and regime on life support.
Also in the mix are sanctions against Iran’s Special Trade and Finance Instrument, the mirror company to Europe’s Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges, a special-purpose vehicle set up to try to circumvent U.S. sanctions, a person familiar with Treasury discussions said.
Other sanctions could target economic sectors not already hit such as consumer- or industrial-goods manufacturing, or entities that move money or products in and out of Iran, such as trading houses or shipping concerns.
The U.S. Treasury Department, which is responsible for levying sanctions, declined to comment.
The U.S. faces strong opposition from European nations, Russia and China to further sanctions, which many analysts said are less about economics than diplomacy.
European leaders opposed Mr. Trump’s decision last year to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear accord, which allows Iran to enrich uranium in return for accepting constraints on its nuclear program. Even with alleged Iranian attacks on foreign tankers and Iran’s threats to expand uranium enrichment, Europe’s and Washington’s prescriptions for managing tensions in the region appear to be starkly different.
The clashing strategies are expected to be discussed at an array of forums this week, especially the G-20 meeting on Friday and Saturday, which U.S., Saudi, European, Russian and Chinese leaders will attend.
“The G-20 will be an opportunity to try to build some concrete diplomatic solutions to this situation,” Mr. Macron said on Friday. French officials said he would likely use the days before the G-20 gathering to test the space for flexibility in the Iranian position, with a phone call with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani likely.
The European initiatives are based on the assumption that the Persian Gulf remains a flashpoint, that additional American sanctions will backfire and that de-escalatory steps by both sides are urgently needed to create the space for a potential U.S.-Iran negotiation to head off a resumption of hostilities.
While planning to caution the Americans about ramping up pressure, France, Britain and Germany also this weekend issued a formal diplomatic request to Iranian officials to abide by the limits set on stockpiles of low-enriched uranium by the 2015 nuclear accord, which Iran is threatening to exceed on June 27, European diplomats said.
Britain’s foreign-office minister for the Middle East, Andrew Murrison, visited Tehran on Sunday for meetings with senior government officials, following visits last week by a top French official, the German foreign minister and a senior European Union diplomat.
He reiterated Western accusations that Iran was behind recent attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman and said Iran must continue meeting its commitments under the nuclear agreement. However, he said the U.K. remains determined “to maintain the nuclear deal, which is in our shared security interests.”
“The Islamic Republic believes that such visits and talks should yield acceptable results and practical steps. Otherwise, visits and statements merely don’t work out and the Islamic Republic will firmly take its preplanned steps” to increase stockpiles, Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said on Sunday.
European officials have warned there will be consequences if Iran disregards key commitments under the nuclear deal, but Europe’s ability to influence Tehran is limited. European nations have yet to develop a robust channel for carrying out trade with Iran while circumventing U.S. economic sanctions. Should Iran exceed the limits of the 2015 nuclear accord, the European Union likely will move cautiously over the summer before deciding whether to snap sanctions back on Tehran—a move European nations fear would effectively kill the deal.
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. also will be a key subject at meetings in Europe. On Thursday, Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, will meet in Paris with representatives of Britain, Germany and France. The next day, Iran is scheduled to attend a meeting in Vienna to review the nuclear accord with France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China.
At a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday, American diplomats plan to present their evidence that the U.S. Global Hawk drone that was shot down was in international airspace. Tensions also are likely to be discussed at a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers in Brussels this week.
Another set of important meetings will be taking place in the Middle East, where expanding the U.S.-led opposition to Iran will be the main focus.
On Sunday, Mr. Pompeo left for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which he called “two great allies in the challenge that Iran presents.”