WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is slapping new sanctions against Iran on Tuesday over its shipments of rockets to Russia for use against Ukraine — with the penalties coming after years of bipartisan pressure to increase financial pressure on Tehran.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the White House had warned Iran that providing such weapons to the Kremlin would be “a dramatic escalation” in global tensions over the war.
White House spokesman John Kirby said the sanctions will be applied to people and companies involved in the arms delivery, although he did not specifically mention possible enhanced enforcement of existing sanctions against Iran’s lucrative oil exports.
“We’re going to be designating individuals and entities in Iran and Russia that are involved in the actual delivery of weapons components and weapons systems including [drones] and again these close-range ballistic missiles,” Kirby said on a Tuesday morning press call.
The Treasury Department said that the sanctions impact 10 individuals and six entities based in either Iran or Russia, whose financial assets and property located in US and allied countries now will be frozen.
The targets include the company Iran Air, a state-owned passenger and cargo carrier, and Iranian government officials.
Kirby said the US action was timed to coincide with a joint announcement by France, Germany and the UK that those countries would “suspend certain lucrative commercial ties with Iran and their state-owned businesses.
“As has been reported recently, dozens of Russian military personnel have been trained in Iran to use the Fateh-360 close-range ballistic missile system,” Kirby said. “Russia has received the shipments of Iranian Fateh-360 close-range ballistic missiles and will probably employ them within weeks against Ukraine.
“We will supplement [the European countries’] action with our own sanctions that the Department of Treasury and the Department of State will be announcing later this morning, including additional measures against Iran Air, and we expect allies and partners will be announcing their own measures against Iran as well.”
The US action was announced hours before former President Donald Trump’s first — and possibly only — debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, at which the Republican is expected to bash the Democrat’s role in Biden’s foreign policy.
Trump, 78, regularly accuses Biden and Harris, 59, of allowing Iran to take more aggressive action abroad by loosening the enforcement of oil sanctions.
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Biden last September agreed to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil proceeds held by South Korea in exchange for the release of five jailed US citizens — but hastily backtracked weeks later after Iran-backed Hamas terrorists murdered about 1,200 people in a rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7.
The US and Qatar reportedly reached a “quiet agreement” to pause distribution of the funds.
A bipartisan group of 62 House members — including Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California — in January asked Biden to fully enforce current sanctions on Iranian oil sales after exports surged to more than double Iran’s export levels in 2019 and 2020 while Trump was president.
“Iran now exports more than 1.4 million barrels of crude oil daily, over 80% of which goes to China. From February 2021 to October 2023, the regime has taken at least $88 billion from these illicit oil exports,” the group wrote.
“Iran is deriving significant economic benefits from pervasive sanctions evasion, with Iran’s annual economic growth increasing by more than four percent and net foreign currency reserves up by 45 percent.”
A crackdown on Iranian oil exports could cause global petroleum prices to increase, which historically has hurt the American political party that’s in power.
Biden in April announced limited sanctions against Iranian steel and drone companies and 16 individuals after the country launched a barrage of missiles at Israel in a largely unsuccessful attack. Most rockets and drones were intercepted and the sole casualty was a wounded 7-year-old Bedouin Arab girl.
