Iran Lawmakers Retaliate Against United States

Iran’s parliament has responded to new sanctions by passing a bill that gives the judiciary greater powers to target United States’ intelligence and military operatives, as well as American citizens and businesses living and operating in the Islamic Republic. The new bill will allow for the freezing of company assets, as well as the assets of individuals. 

At the same time, parliament also demanded that several ministries and Iran’s military forces present a strategy for combatting US actions, and called for increased budgets to expand Iran’s missile program and the military. Since the Revolutionary Guards oversee Iran’s missile program, the bill can be interpreted as a direct budget increase for the Guards. 

On Sunday, August 13, parliament passed the 27-part “Confronting American Hostile Actions” bill, with 240 out of 244 legislators voting in favor. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani lauded the sanctions bill, which has the approval of President Rouhani and his administration, as the first step in confronting the United States.

On July 27, the United States Senate voted 98-2 to impose new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea, supporting the House of Representatives’ decision to do the same two days previously. The vote in the House was equally overwhelmingly veto-proof, with representatives voting for sanctions 419 to 3. The act, labeled H.R.3364, directs the president to impose sanctions against: “(1) Iran's ballistic missile or weapons of mass destruction programs, (2) the sale or transfer to Iran of military equipment or the provision of related technical or financial assistance, and (3) Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and affiliated foreign persons.”

The act also allows US president Donald Trump, who signed it into law on August 2, to “impose sanctions against persons responsible for violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals in Iran.” 

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who runs the Headquarters for Implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — as the nuclear deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries is officially known — had previously said that the “Confronting American Hostile Actions” bill formed part of the agenda of the Supervisory Board that helps oversee the JCPOA. The board functions under Iran’s High National Security Council.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry will draw up the sanctions list to be introduced as part of the act. In particular, it will single out any US citizen who has been involved in violating human rights of fellow Americans and Muslim immigrants to the US, or who has participated in, as the bill puts it, “annihilating the Blacks.” Broadly worded, the bill states that any American who has violated human rights anywhere in the world could be considered as a candidate for the list.

Following on from the vote, two days later, Iran’s judiciary froze the assets of 152 former and current BBC Persian staff and contributors, but there was said to be no link between the attack, which the management of BBC Persian described as an attempt to silence impartial journalists, and the targeting of a “hostile” US.

Warmongering, Genocide, Terrorism...

The bill is worded aggressively, and accuses the US of warmongering, genocide, supporting terrorism, and supporting extremist groups. In addition to the sanctions against the US military and intelligence agencies and US citizens, Iran’s parliament ordered the foreign, intelligence and defense ministries, the military, and the expeditionary Quds Force to come up with a comprehensive plan of action to confront the US within six months.

US citizens who have disclosed “American torture and crimes” in Iraq and Afghanistan are exempt from the sanctions, as are those who have identified or uncovered crimes against African-Americans. People who have actively opposed President Trump’s executive order on immigration and travel from the six Muslim-majority countries including Iran are also exempt. 

So far it is not clear how the Iranian government plans to identify these individuals, but the bill orders the foreign ministry to prepare the list within three months.

On a practical level, the bill is problematic. When officially passed into law, the government will be ordered to pay 1,000 billion tomans (over $300 million) to the expeditionary Quds Force, which is currently fighting in Iraq and Syria “to combat terrorism.” Equal amounts will go to the military for expanding Iran’s missile programs and to ministries of intelligence, foreign affairs and defense to “strengthen Iran’s defense capabilities.”

Since Iran’s missile program is mainly under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, this payment can be seen as a simple increase of the Guards’ budget. The government must also pay 200 billion tomans (over $60 million) to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

The bill does not specify how the government will account for this expenditure. The Revolutionary Guards and the General Staff of the Armed Forces are not accountable to the government or the parliament, so they would be under no obligation to report to the government about how they spend the money.

Prior to the vote, Abbas Araghchi, who leads on the implementation of the JCPOA, confirmed that the Revolutionary Guards and the Quds Force would be “strengthened” in response to new American sanctions, and that Iran’s judiciary would be directly involved. On July 24, President Rouhani met with five senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards; both the president and the Guards announced that both sides would cooperate in the face of sanctions.

A Billion-Dollar Ransom

Critics argue that President Rouhani has agreed to pay a ransom of around a billion dollars in order to protect the JCPOA from its harshest critics — i.e., the Revolutionary Guards and the hardliners who continue to want to see the nuclear agreement scuttled.

The bill orders the Quds Force to cooperate with the Intelligence Ministry to “consult and exchange information with independent countries and resistance forces in the region in order to surveil American terrorism and adventurism.” Parliament’s treatment of the Quds Force as an entity distinct from the Revolutionary Guards and its decision to give it new missions is a significant development. It is believed that the Quds Force plays the key role in setting Iranian policy in the Middle East, so parliament’s newly-passed bill can only strengthen this role and give it more legitimacy.

On the other hand, by supporting the bill, Rouhani’s administration appears to be trying to maintain control over Iranian responses to any possible action by President Trump. “There is nothing in this bill that is in conflict with the JCPOA,” said Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, spokesman for the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, during the debate on the floor. This echoed Araghchi’s earlier insistence that the “bill does not violate the JCPOA.” 

By emphasizing that the bill in no way violates the nuclear deal, Rouhani’s government hopes to deny Donald Trump of any excuses to abandon the agreement. The Rouhani administration certainly wants to keep the deal intact, but if the situation does deteriorate to the point where it dissolves, Iran does not want to be seen to be the one to have sabotaged it. 

A large budget increase, and a save of face, but beyond this, the bill is not hugely consequential, especially when it comes to sanctions on American entities. Speaking on television on July 29, Araghchi made it implicitly clear that the bill before the Iranian parliament was more “symbolic” than anything else. “This bill is not operational,” said Hossein Ali Haji Deligani, a member of parliament, on August 13. “Such laws have been passed before but the results have not been clear,” said hardliner representative Ali Adyani.

Hardliners Remain Unconvinced

The hardliner daily Kayhan called the bill “futile” and accused Speaker Ali Larijani of “wasting time.” The newspaper accused both the government and parliament of trying to deceive public opinion and published an article that said that most Americans due to be sanctioned “have nothing to do with Iran.” And it concluded that “the weak and useless” nature of the bill “would embolden the Americans more than ever” and strengthen their belief that Iran is too dependent on the JCPOA.

“This law does not strike a serious blow to American interests,” wrote the newspaper Javan, an affiliate of the Revolutionary Guards.

Such reactions show that, at least in the short term, Rouhani’s government has failed to convince domestic opponents of the JCPOA that he is looking out for the country’s interests and standing up to the United States in the way they think he should be. 

For them — and perhaps like Donald Trump — nothing short of JCPOA’s demise will be enough.