[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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