Tag Archives: Iran’s nuclear program

US Congress to Target European Central Bank to Stop Iran from Using Euros

U.S. lawmakers are crafting a bill designed to stop the European Central Bank from handling business from the Iranian government, a congressional aide said on Thursday, an attempt to keep Tehran from using euros to develop its nuclear program.

The bill, in the early stages of drafting, would target the ECB’s cross-border payment system and impose U.S. economic penalties on entities that use the European Central Bank to do business with Iran’s government, the aide said on condition of anonymity.

U.S. sanctions have cut Iran off from the U.S. financial system and largely prevented it from conducting bank transactions in dollars, which for the most part must clear through U.S. banks. The draft legislation appears designed to make it harder for Iran to use euros as a substitute.

One of the lawmakers working on the proposed legislation is Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, an advocate of tighter sanctions on Iran. It is unclear how much support in Congress there may be for the idea.

The European Central Bank’s so-called Target2 system is used to settle cross-border payments in Europe and processes around 350,000 payments daily, according to the most recent figures made available.

Although the ECB already complies with European Union sanctions against Iran, the proposed bill is aimed at pressing Europe to do more to prevent Iranian firms and banks from using the Target2 system to conduct transactions involving euros.

“The ECB ensures that no illegitimate transactions are cleared in Target2,” a spokesman for the euro zone’s central bank said. “But any sanctions are EU sanctions and not an ECB competence.”

The ECB provision is part of a wider U.S. bill aimed at choking off funds to the Iranian government.

It is unclear when the bill would be introduced or whether there would be support in the U.S. Congress or the Obama administration to enact another set of economic sanctions.

The United States and the European Union have worked mostly in tandem to impose harsh economic sanctions against Iran, which have so far slashed the country’s oil revenues, disrupted trade and weakened its currency.

ECB representatives are due in Brussels at the start of March for discussions on various Iran sanctions issues, EU sources said, though the meetings were not specifically to discuss Target2.

Last year, U.S. lawmakers succeeded in pressuring Belgium-based SWIFT electronic payment system to block Iranian transactions. SWIFT, which facilitates the bulk of global cross-border payments, disconnected designated Iranian financial firms from its messaging system after European regulators ordered the company to do so.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/21/us-ecb-iran-idUSBRE91K0V420130221

 

How Europe’s Companies Are Feeding Iran’s Bomb

By Benjamin Weinthal

February 5, 2009

While the U.S. has ratcheted up its efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, the Islamic Republic is reaping a windfall from European companies. These firms’ deals aid a regime that is bent on developing nuclear weapons and which financially supports the terror organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123379548035950207.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Iranian Economy Unwisely Helped by Germany

March 25, 2008

by Douglas Stone

Beginning with Bismarck’s creation of modern Germany, when it comes to moral choices and obligations to the rest of the world, Germany never seems to get it right: Taking a chunk out of France in 1870 to consolidate the Reich; blundering the world into the hecatombs of World War I; and, delivering a holocaust in World War II.

And now, yet again, by helping to sustain an Iranian regime attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Even as Chancellor Merkel stands before Israel’s Knesset to tut tut her concern over the mullahs, Germany isn’t even taking the least costly steps to help keep Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.

Among the Western industrial powers, no country is more enthusiastic than Germany about trading with Iran and supplying it with the advanced goods crucial to its economy. Whether a German boycott of Iran would finally force Iran to respect demands for a shutdown of its nuclear efforts is unclear; what is clear is that without Germany adhering to tough sanctions there cannot be sufficient pressure on the Iranians to modify their behavior.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25598


Florida poised to lead with Divest Terror law; Florida poised to lead with legislation divesting pension funds from Iran-Partnering Companies

Apr 30, 2007

The Florida State Senate unanimously joined the growing nationwide movement to divest from Iran.

The Florida bill – introduced by Sen. Ted Deutch (D–Boca Raton) – joins other terror-free investing (TFI) initiatives in California, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Vermont and New Jersey aimed at divesting public pension funds doing business in one or more terror-sponsoring states.   This legislative action in Tallahassee could make State of Florida the first in the country to pass a bill designed to have its pension plans divest from companies investing in Iran’s energy sector. The Florida bill would also direct the state’s pension systems to divest from companies doing business with the government of Sudan.

Responding to critics of the bill who claimed the legislature is improperly meddling in financial matters, Florida Sen. Don Gaetz (R–Fort Walton Beach) said, “Any uncertainty over whether public policy should have a moral basis was resolved, on this continent at least, by Jefferson, Adams, Madison and later, Lincoln. When functionaries of government decide to put our retirees’ savings into the war-making capabilities of our enemies, they’re making bad public policy and elected lawmakers have a moral obligation to try to stop it.”

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p13664.xml?cat_id=220


The Myth of America’s ‘Tough’ Iran Policy

March 12, 2009

The Obama administration has disclosed plans to shift U.S. policy toward Iran from the “policies of the past” to a policy of “constructive dialogue” and “mutual respect,” in hopes that Iran will become benevolent and “unclench their fist.”

As futile as the idea of talking to the Ayatollahs seems to sober Americans and our allies today, we must first set the record straight on those policies of the past that Obama is determined to change: America has never had a “tough” policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.2732/pub_detail.asp

Obama’s Misguided Iran Policies

February 14, 2009

Among the topics that President Obama covered in his first news conference on the evening of Monday, February 9th, was Iran.

The president made several troubling statements which is hardly surprising, given that the new administration’s entire approach to Iran is troubling.

President Obama used terms and phrases like “constructive dialogue,” “engage” and “mutual respect and progress.”

None of these expressions has any place in a conversation about Iran.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.2526/pub_detail.asp