U.S. House committee pushes for tougher sanctions on Iran

A U.S. House committee on Wednesday approved tougher sanctions on Iran, targeting the central bank of Iran in a bid to further isolate the country from the international community. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the effort, following Iran's alleged involvement in the plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is meant to "clamp new and tougher sanctions on Iran's energy sector, threatening the regime's existence if it refuses to halt its nuclear weapons program." The legislation, which is very likely to be passed in the House, asked President Barack Obama to target the central bank of Iran if he determines that it was involved in supporting Iran's nuclear programs or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. "I believe the central bank of Iran is not only engaging in those activities; I believe it is the ultimate engine of those activities," said Representative Howard Berman, one of the authors of the legislation. The new sanctions build on the previous ones that the U.S. imposed on Iran last July which penalized international firms assisting Iran's energy industry and banned U.S. banks from dealing with foreign banks linked to its Revolutionary Guards or nuclear programs. The U.S. has been working on tougher sanctions on the central bank of Iran for a while. In October, U.S. Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said at a hearing at the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. is seeking multilateral support in an effort to impose additional sanctions on Iran's central bank, which, according to him, will have "a potentially powerful impact on Iran."