as it tries to nail the new front companies the Islamic Republic creates to try to evade sanctions.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions on yet more Iranian businesses last week as it continues playing whack-a-mole, trying to identify more front companies created by Iran to avoid sanctions.
Last week’s announcement was the third list this month and the 11th issued in the past six months.
Many American media outlets, however, treated the news as some startling new policy development. The New York Times, for example, declared that the Obama Administration “imposed new sanctions on Iran.” But that was wrong. The US government actually imposed old sanctions on new firms—as it has been doing on an average of every other week in the past six months.
The one noteworthy firm sanctioned was the Moallem Insurance Co. Moallem has been around for years and dealt in general insurance, but not marine insurance. After the US Treasury convinced all the world’s major marine insurers to abandon Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) set Moallem up as a marine insurer to cover its vessels.
But many ports do not accept Moallem’s insurance and banks are now demanding that IRISL pay off more than half a billion dollars in debts to those banks immediately.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described the US action this way: “This is part of the ongoing cat-and-mouse game. They [Iran] try to do everything they can to evade these sanctions and, as they take actions, we also take corresponding actions.”
The other firms sanctioned last week were the Ansar Bank and Mehr Bank, Taavon Sepah Foundation and Liner Transport Kish.
In Tehran, Ataollah Borujerdi, chairman of the Majlis National Security Committee, described the latest imposition of sanctions as “childish.”