By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
 
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has just voted to impose new sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile tests and alleged human rights violations, despite warnings from some Democrats and the former Obama administration that its actions could jeopardize the landmark nuclear deal struck with Tehran.
The bipartisan bill, which now has 48 Senate co-sponsors, imposes mandatory sanctions on people involved with Iran’s ballistic missile program and those who do business with them. It also applies alleged terrorism sanctions to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and enforces an arms embargo. Few points are worth mentioning in this respect:
-The oppressive tactics have to some extent altered the modus operandi of military and defense in Iran. But that’s all really. They will fail to slow down Iran’s missile production or disrupt its military defense capabilities.
-The unilateral U.S sanctions regime was and still is short of scientific, technical, legal or justified virtues, and only designed to appease Israel and Saudi Arabia which just recently signed a deal to purchase U.S. arms worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The sanctions regime has nothing to do with human rights record either. It has to do with Iran’s rise as a sovereign nation, a movement and an identity guided by principles against the hegemonic system.
-The oppressive tactics will continue to generate a great deal of resentment on the world stage. Given the rotting security situation in Europe, it is still in the best interests of all concerned to continue converging on diplomacy and working with Iran in regional security affairs. It is the only viable option left, and indeed the only high aim that’s worthwhile.
-The new sanctions violate the spirit of the nuclear deal between Iran and the West. Tehran has met its various obligations in ensuring regional peace and security and it is Washington that has a lot of work to do. They must stop weaponizing Iran’s neighbors and their own terror proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. President Rouhani has already warned, "In case of the six countries’ violation of a final nuclear deal, the Iranian government will be fully ready to immediately return to the previous path even more vigorously than they could imagine.”
Whatever this is, the aim of those behind the new anti-Iran sanctions is too low and they will miss it. The Capitol Hill warmongers have been powerless to edge Iran’s rising influence and military prowess throughout the Middle East. The American think tanks acknowledge that with Trump in office, Iran will be a stronger nation than when Obama was; Iran will be an undisputed regional power than it was when Trump took office; and Iran will be playing a much more prominent and constructive role in the region and the world than it was before Trump took office.
Nonetheless, as maintained by Iranian Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the chief aim of U.S. sanctions is to contain Iran and that’s why the country doesn’t need to suspend its conventional missile defense program. The world powers might have great differences of opinion on how best to deal with the matter. But that’s not the point. The point is that Tehran has met its international obligations with regard to ensuring regional security and fighting terrorism. It is now up to the United States to reciprocate.