human rights abuses of Iranian citizens trying to protest last year’s elections. It was the first time Washington had sanctioned anyone for human right abuses.
The sanctions themselves are actually very hollow—the US government will not issue visas to any of the men and has ordered any assets they have in the United States to be frozen. But, as senior officials of the Islamic regime, they are unlikely ever to wish to visit the United States or to hold assets in the US.
State Department officials made clear the real reason for the sanctions was two-fold.
First, the Obama Administration has been looking for some way to make its support for human rights concerns in Iran manifest. The Obama Administration has been criticized for talking a great deal about Iran’s nuclear program and very little about its human rights compliance. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Washington has been fearful of playing into the hands of the Islamic Republic if it speaks about the opposition and sounds like it is interfering politically in Iranian politics. What the Administration did last week was talk about specific violators of human rights without talking about specific people in the opposition. The United States has sanctioned dozens of Iranians for working on missile or nuclear programs. These are the first Iranians to be cited for human rights abuses. The authority to do so was just established in the sanctions law that passed Congress in the spring.
Second, Administration officials said a number of foreign governments and banking associations pay attention to the long list of people the United States has sanctioned—not just Iranians, but people from all over the world who have been sanctioned chiefly for being drug lords or terrorists. The Swiss banking system has said publicly that its uses the US sanction list. The US hopes that some of the eight sanctioned Iranians have bank accounts in countries that will now act against them based on the US listing.
The full list of the eight men appears in box to the left.
In Tehran, the government seemed unsure how best to react—so it reacted in contradictory ways.
At least two of the eight men sanctioned treated it as a gigantic joke. They publicly laughed at the United States, pointing how out exactly what the sanctions did and thereby emphasizing just how hollow they are. For example, Deputy National Police Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said, “This is more like a joke.” He said he hoped President Obama would announce what his account balance in the United States totaled, so he could follow up the matter in the future when the freeze is lifted.
But at the same time, a group of Majlis deputies pounded their chests and demanded that the Islamic Republic respond firmly to this vicious and harsh attack made on Iran by the Americans. In a statement, the deputies called the sanctioning of the eight men “a move against the Iranian people.”
Judiciary Chairman Sadeq Larijani said the sanctions showed Washington’s desperation in the face of Iranian resistance. He said the sanctions were adopted by the Americans without “due process,” thereby making a lie of Washington’s claim that it abides by the law—an allegation that made no sense.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast gave his Number One standard response. He accused the United States of interfering in Iranian domestic affairs by sanctioning the eight men. He also gave standard response Number Two, saying the sanctions “violate international law.” And, as per usual, he cited no international law.
Back in the United States, Ray Tekeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “This is a list of exceptionally disreputable figures. The guys here are first class thugs.”
And Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, lauded the Administration for finally focusing on human rights issues and not just the nuclear issue. “It sends a message to the Iranian public that US sanctions are tied to something they care about, not just to something the Americans care about.”