[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 91 (Thursday, June 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5102-S5103]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             IRAN SANCTIONS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on June 14, Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli 
Deputy Defense Minister, wrote a column in the Huffington Post, titled 
``Tickling Sanctions for Iran From the UN--It's Now Up to Congress,'' 
explaining that the United Nations Security Council's recent sanctions 
on Iran are insufficient.
  Dr. Sneh wrote that the Security Council's new sanctions are merely 
``recommendations, not binding orders'' because they do not address the 
Iranian regime's greatest vulnerability, its oil and gas industry. He 
urges Congress to pass the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which 
he believes is ``the last option left to promote peace, to free the 
Iranian people and to prevent war.''
  I agree with Dr. Sneh. Further, I believe it is imperative, in view 
of the feckless action by the Security Council, and the timid actions 
by the administration on unilateral designations yesterday, that 
Congress act without further delay to pass this new legislation to 
impose crippling sanctions on Iran.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have Dr. Sneh's column 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Huffington Post, June 14, 2010]

    Tickling Sanctions for Iran From the UN--It's Now Up to Congress

      (By Ephraim Sneh, Former Deputy Defense Minister of Israel)

       Secretary of State Clinton promised to impose ``crippling 
     sanctions'' on Iran if it keeps cheating the international 
     community and enriching uranium for a nuclear weapon.
       However, the sanctions decided by the UN Security Council 
     last week are tickling sanctions--definitely not crippling 
     ones. They annoy the Ayatollahs' regime, but they cannot 
     bring about its end. They will not delay the Iranian nuclear 
     project by one single day.
       The main problem is that the sanctions do not effectively 
     harm the Iranian energy industry, which is the regime's life 
     artery. Iran's oil and gas industry enables the regime to 
     govern. The UN sanctions, instead, focus on the Revolutionary 
     Guards (IRGC), on the nuclear project, and on the banking and 
     shipping systems that directly support it. Moreover, 
     countries that are not keen to impose those sanctions are not 
     strictly obliged to do so. Actually, these are 
     recommendations, not binding orders.
       Sanctions which do not substantially undermine the 
     financial basis of the regime do not impede the regime's 
     ability to govern. Such sanctions cannot create a 
     revolutionary situation in Iran that millions of protesters 
     who courageously took to the streets aspire for. The moral 
     support they received from the western democracies until now 
     has been feeble and disappointing.
       Iran's nuclear project runs on two parallel tracks: It 
     produces large amounts of Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), and it 
     manufactures a large number of centrifuges. When the 
     Ayatollahs decide, many thousands of centrifuges, operating 
     at high speed, will create Highly Enriched Uranium in 
     quantities large enough to manufacture several nuclear bombs. 
     The critical process in nuclear weapon building is the 
     creation of fissile material. This is how Iran will obtain 
     it.
       A nuclear Iran is not a threat only for Israel. It is a 
     threat for every state within range of its ballistic 
     missiles. Today Delhi, Moscow and Athens are inside this 
     range. In two years' time, when the next generation of 
     Iranian ballistic missile will enter operational status, more 
     capitals, including European, will join the club of 
     threatened states.
       But there is one country, Israel, which cannot live even 
     one day under the shadow of an Iranian nuclear weapon. In my 
     office, as in many offices and homes in Israel, decision-
     makers included, portraits of our grandparents killed by the 
     Nazis hang on the walls. Israel, bearing this collective 
     historic lesson, cannot allow those who twice a week declare 
     that they will liquidate the Jewish state to have the means 
     to do so. The Jewish people will not pay the price for the 
     weakness of the West twice in 70 years.
       Maybe we are paranoid. But, as Henry Kissinger said, ``even 
     a paranoid may have real enemies.'' We do have enemies who 
     viscerally hate us, whether our policies are clever or 
     stupid.
       The UN Security Council resolution means that the 
     international community actually acquiesces to a nuclear 
     Iran. Israel is in a corner, and the international community 
     is pushing us to act on our own. Regrettably, we were not 
     wise enough to avoid being so isolated at the same time that 
     we find ourselves in this corner. But our mistakes do not 
     diminish our existential need to act.
       The United States could not achieve a better UN resolution. 
     In the current international situation, in a forum where 
     Russia and China can cast a veto, where Brazil and

[[Page S5103]]

     Turkey can bluntly defy it, American diplomacy did its best. 
     But the bottom line is that the Iranian nuclear project will 
     not be stopped by these sanctions, and the regime in Teheran 
     will survive.
       There is still something that can be done. The US 
     Congress's bipartisan Iranian Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act 
     (IRPSA), submitted by Congressman Howard Berman and 
     Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is ready. The sanctions 
     enshrined in IRPSA may cripple the Iranian energy industry, 
     which bankrolls the Ayatollhas. It may bring the regime to 
     its knees. IRPSA poses a clear choice to international 
     corporations: With whom do you want to do business--Iran or 
     the US? If the traditional allies of United States and, most 
     importantly, responsible European countries implement these 
     sanctions, the regime in Teheran would not be able to govern. 
     It would not be able to cruelly repress the Iranian people, 
     export hatred and terror, and build nuclear weapons.
       Voting for IRPSA and implementing it promptly is the last 
     option left to promote peace, to free the Iranian people and 
     to prevent war.

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