President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order imposing new “hard hitting” economic sanctions on Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has been specifically targeted in this round of sanctions.
Mr Trump said it is in response to the downing of the $110 million-worth U.S. military surveillance drone in the Gulf region last Thursday. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin said that these sanctions were already in the works before this deliberate attack due to previous aggressive actions by Iranian authorities.
President Trump has pinned responsibility on Khamenei because he is “ultimately responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime”. Sanctions have been dropped on several senior commanders who preside over Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps. Mr Mnuchin added that further sanctions will be enacted on Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later this week. According to Mr Mnuchin, this pressure campaign will lock up “billions” of dollars in Iranian assets.
Setad, also known as EIKO (Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order) is a state-owned organisation created in the aftermath of the 1979 rebellion, which is overseen by Khameini. Setad, which the U.S. Treasury Department considers to be, “a massive network of front companies hiding assets on behalf of the Iran’s leadership”, has been under strict sanctions since June 2013. According to Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Ayatollah controls a “$200 billion corporate empire.” The U.S. administration is now tightening its stranglehold on its affiliates and anyone connected to the company or the Ayatollah.
Tehran has responded that these, “useless sanctions” coming from the Oval Office are, “the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy”. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the White House “is afflicted by mental retardation”.
In an interview last week, a senior Iranian defence official said that Iran’s military could “totally obliterate” U.S. military bases in the area and annihilate Israel and “erase its entity and uproot it from existence”.
U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton told Reuters reporters following a tri-lateral meeting with Russia and Israel that “the combination of sanctions and other pressure will bring Iran to the table”.
The UK Minister of State for the Middle East and North Africa Dr Andrew Murrison was in Tehran over the weekend to discuss recent incident in the Gulf of Oman which “needs to stop to allow for immediate de-escalation of rising tensions”.
Dr Murrison confirmed that he also pressed for the “urgent and unconditional release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and all British-Iranian dual nationals who are being arbitrarily detained”. This was the third UK ministerial visit to Iran in a year.
