A top government official said the White House soon will impose new sanctions on Iran that will target the country’s drone and missile program, after its “unprecedented” attack by air on Israel over the weekend.
On Tuesday, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, announced that the sanctions will take effect “in the coming days.” They are meant to penalize Iran for attacking Israel.
These new sanctions, according to Sullivan, will target “entities” that back Iran’s Defense Ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known more commonly as the IRGC.
As he said:
“These new sanctions and other measures will continue a steady drumbeat of pressure to contain and degrade Iran’s military capacity and effectiveness and confront the full range of its problematic behavior.”
On Saturday night, Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles — 300 in all — at Israel in response to an airstrike Israel is alleged to have carried out in April that killed several top military officials with Iran while they were in Syria’s capital, Damascus.
A large majority of those airstrikes were shot down by Israel’s air defense systems as well as the country’s allies in the region. Even still, the U.S. wants to make sure that a strong message is sent to Iran that such attacks as these are unacceptable.
As Sullivan explained:
“President Biden is coordinating with allies and partners, including the G7, and with bipartisan leaders in Congress, on a comprehensive response. We anticipate that our allies and partners will soon be following with their own sanctions.”
The sanctions that the U.S. has placed on Iran in the past have sought to prevent the country from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons. They also have sought to put pressure on Iran’s economy.
It’s possible that additional economic sanctions could be placed on Iran, too, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen highlighted during a Tuesday news conference. She warned that the conduct Iran was taking could ultimately lead to “economic spillovers.”
As she said:
“From this weekend’s attack to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, Iran’s actions threaten the region’s stability and could cause economic spillovers.
“We’ve targeted over 500 individuals and entities connected to terrorism and terrorist financing by the Iranian regime and its proxies since the start of the Administration.”
Before this weekend, Iran was only indirectly involved in the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. That was done mainly through proxy groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, both of whom have carried out attacks against Israel and others in the region as a protest of the ongoing fighting in Gaza.
However, the airstrikes came directly from Iran, which took the seriousness to the next level.
Even still, President Joe Biden has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. would not support a full-fledged military response to Iran’s attacks, opting instead to place new sanctions on the country.
