newjerseynewsroom.com

BY JIM LOBE

IPS NEWS AGENCY

WASHINGTON — As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama prepares for a critical series of talks about the fate of Iran's nuclear program, Congress has begun moving long-pending legislation to impose new unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

In just the past few days, the Senate approved a measure, already passed by the House of Representatives, that bans companies that sell Iran gasoline from bidding on contracts for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

And the House Thursday approved by an overwhelming 414-6 margin the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act (IRSA) that would permit local and state governments and their pension funds to divest from foreign companies or U.S. subsidiaries with investments of more than 20 million dollars in Iran's energy sector.

Finally, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, scheduled a vote for Oct. 28 on the long-stalled Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA) bill that would, if passed, impose sanctions on companies that are involved in exporting refined petroleum products to Iran or expanding Tehran's capacity to produce its own refined products.

Moreover, the House Majority Leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer, pledged that he would push for a floor vote on the measure, which is expected to easily pass the Committee, by early November.

While the bills' supporters insist they are trying to give Obama more leverage in the upcoming talks with Iran, the administration has itself declined to endorse any of them, suggesting that unilateral sanctions may prove counterproductive both to its "engagement" strategy with Tehran and to lining up international support, even among its European allies, for multilateral sanctions if the negotiations fail to make progress.

"I think we have not reached a judgment as to which [sanctions] might be the most effective," Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey told senators earlier this month when asked about the IRPSA bill.

"In part because, not only do we want to have the impact on the economy, we want to make sure that [the sanction] is going to affect the decision making in Iran and not target the wrong people in Iran and, similarly, to make sure that we maximize the chance of getting international support for these things," he continued. "If we do not have international support, there'll be diversions."

"Not only is a sanction more effective when they're (sic) broad-based, but it also takes away the political argument that the Iranian government may try to make, which that this is American hostility," added Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg at the same hearing.

Both men suggested that sanctions affecting the general population could actually strengthen popular support for the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose credibility at home was badly damaged by June's disputed election and its violent aftermath.

The renewed drive for unilateral sanctions comes just days before two critical tests of Iran's willingness to follow through on agreements in principle reached between it and the so-called P5+1 - the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, including the U.S. and Germany - at their meeting in Geneva Oct. 1.

On Monday, the P5+1 will meet at the Vienna headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to work out the technical details of a plan under which Tehran would ship out most of the low-enriched uranium (LEU) it has produced over the last several years to Russia and France for reprocessing into fuel for a small reactor that makes isotopes for nuclear medicines.

In his testimony, Steinberg said actual shipment of the LEU by Tehran would be considered by the administration to be "tangible sign of progress".

Iran has also agreed to grant IAEA inspectors full access Oct. 25 to a newly disclosed nuclear enrichment plant near Qom to ensure that it is being built for civilian purposes only. Assuming the inspection goes smoothly, the P5+1 and Iran are expected to hold a second high-level meeting in early November at which additional confidence-building measures are to be agreed.