US Ignoring Iran Sanction Violations As Obama Admin Looks to Rollback Non-Nuke Sanctions

The United Nations has revealed that no new cases of Iran violating the Security Council’s sanction have been reported. This would be great news, however, violations have occurred publicly, suggesting nation’s may be turning a blind eye to Iran’s violations in hopes of a successful nuclear deal. According to a Bloomberg report, there is speculation that Western nations involved in the nuclear talks are consciously decided to not publicize the obvious violations in hopes of avoiding any jeopardization of the talks’ progress. The new allegations adds fuel to the flame of criticisms that the United States and other nations involved in the talks are too eager to work with Iran.

The UN’s report on the yearlong mandate portrays a staggering reduction in reporting and information sharing, which could either be Iran actually following the mandates or Western nations overlooking violations. The latter however seems to be the case. The UN Security Council has enforced four different sets of sanctions on Iran, including the ban of importing nuclear related materials, travel bans, and the freezing of specific individual’s and group’s assets. The sanctions has degraded Iran’s economy, leaving Tehran eager to prove its claims that their nuclear program is peaceful and to reach an agreement with Western nations that would lift the sanctions.

However, it is apparent that Iran may not have to appear as eager as they truly are if they can easily get away with eluding any repercussions for not following the mandates. Some countries, in fact, believe Iran has and will continue to bypass the bans. One of the most painstakingly obvious violations involves Major General Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Soleimani has been on the UN’s sanction list since 2007, and was sanctioned by the United States in 2011 under suspicion he was supporting the Syrian regime. Despite no travel ban violations being reported by the UN Panel of Experts on Iran, Soleimani was photographed in Iraq on multiple occasions in 2014 and 2015. Most recently, US intelligence officials reported on June 1, 2015 that Soleimani was in Iraq, providing assistance to Shiite militias alongside the leader of the Imam Ali Brigade, a whose leaders are known for their role in killing American troops.

To make situations worse, the U.S. is now reportedly preparing to scale back more than just sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program. According to a recent report by the Associated Press, the Obama Administration is looking for ways to remove non-nuclear sanctions, including sanctions related to proliferation of ballistic missiles, and terror-related sanctions. That goes against what Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told an audience at a recent Jerusalem Post conference, where he told the audience of largely American Jews, that the Administration intended to uphold terror sanctions. The AP quoted Lew as saying:

“Iran knows that our array of sanctions focused on its efforts to support terrorism and destabilize the region will continue after any nuclear agreement,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told a gathering of American Jews in a weekend speech. U.S. officials will “aggressively target the finances of Iranian-backed terrorist groups and the Iranian entities that support them,” he said, including the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force.”

If the US scales back more than just nuclear related sanctions, it highlights the fact that the United States’ interests in Iran is not exclusively nuclear related. Furthermore, it would further prove how anxious, almost desperate, the administration is to reach a deal with Iran. If non-nuclear sanctions are added to the list of scale-backs before a deal is even struck, more than what is neccessary will have been scaled back and Iran will be in the prime position to have terrorism prosper without overcoming sanction hurdles inside its borders.