WASHINGTON (Dispatches) — The United States on Tuesday unveiled new economic sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program and accusations of contributing to regional tensions.
 The announcements came even as the U.S. certified with Congress that Iran is legally in compliance on the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Senior Trump administration officials had earlier said both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Donald Trump would couch that certification with an accusation that Iran is "unquestionably in default of the spirit” of the nuclear
agreement.
The U.S. Department of Treasury said in a statement it was targeting 18 entities and individuals for supporting what is said was "illicit Iranian actors or transnational criminal activity."
Those sanctioned had backed Iran's military or Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) by developing drones and military equipment, producing and maintaining boats, and procuring electronic components, it said. Others had "orchestrated the theft of U.S. and Western software programs" sold to Iran's government, the Treasury Department claimed.
The U.S. State Department had also designated two Iranian organizations involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program, according to the Treasury Department.
"The United States remains deeply concerned about Iran’s malign activities across the Middle East which undermine regional stability, security, and prosperity," the State Department said in a statement.
It claimed the activities "undercut whatever 'positive contributions' to regional and international peace and security were intended to emerge" from the nuclear agreement.
The statement listed Iranian support for groups including Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas movement as well as the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and Houthis in Yemen.
The Trump administration's announcement was part of an obligation the U.S. has under the deal to certify every 90 days that Iran is complying with the agreement. The last time the administration announced its certification of Iran's compliance, Tillerson said Trump would address the agreement's failures to contain Iran.
Earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif took questions while at the Council on Foreign Relations and defended his country's compliance with the deal.
"I think our compliance is rather straightforward because it’s not for guessing whether we have complied or not," Zarif said. "That is very clear, in black and white in the reports of the (International Atomic Energy Agency) which is hardly a sympathizer of Iran. That’s so you don’t need to ask me whether we’ve complied."
Zarif said Iran believes that for the U.S., including under the Obama administration, it is "more important to maintain the sanctions that remain rather than remove the sanctions."
He also said U.S. sanctions do not work.
"Let me tell you something, the United States should reconsider its approach to sanctions. Sanctions have never been an asset for the United States ... When the U.S. government started to impose nuclear sanctions on Iran we only had 200 centrifuges. When they started negotiating with us in order to remove those sanctions, we had 20,000 centrifuges. So if you want to see the result of sanctions – just 19,800 centrifuges is the net result of sanctions. So sanctions do not produce outcome."

Iranian MPs to Draft Countermeasure
Iranian lawmakers on Tuesday agreed to fast-track an anti-American bill meant to confront "adventurist and terrorist" U.S. actions in the region.
As many as 211 lawmakers in the 290-seat assembly backed an outline for the legislation at a session.
The details of the bill will be worked out in parliament over the next few weeks, after which it will go to the Guardian Council for ratification, like all laws in Iran.
According to the bill, the following persons and entities would be subject to penalties outlined in the legislation.
1. U.S. military and intelligence organizations and senior U.S. commanders and officials supporting terrorist groups;
2. American persons playing an effective part in the activities of the above-mentioned U.S. military and intelligence forces;
3. American persons with an effective role in organizing, financing or conducting acts of terror against the interests of the Iranian government or nationals;
4.  American persons directly or indirectly supporting the terrorist anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) or other extremist and terrorist groups including Daesh and al-Nusra Front, aka Jabhat Fateh al-Sham;
5.  American persons supporting the Israeli regime’s state terrorism against the Palestinian and Lebanese people.
The bill has foreseen various penalties for persons and entities to which it applies, including a ban on the issuing of visas for them to enter Iran, seizure of all their assets in the Islamic Republic and freezing of their accounts with Iranian banks.
It obliges the Iranian administration to allocate over $250 million to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic in order to expand the country’s missile program, increase the Islamic Republic’s deterrent power, for counter-terrorism operations, and to maintain regional stability and support the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
It also urges the Iranian administration to give over $250 million to the IRGC's Quds Force to help it fight terrorism in the region.
The development came a day after the Trump administration told Congress that Iran would face consequences for breaching "the spirit" of the nuclear deal with world powers.
U.S. Congress has been pushing for a new set of sanctions against Iran and its IRGC.