The Bush administration announced broad sanctions targeting Iran’s military.
The anti-terrorism sanctions announced jointly Thursday by the U.S. Treasury and State Department target the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, or MODAFL, as well as nine entities and five individuals identified with the IRGC; two Iranian state-owned banks; and three individuals identified with Iran’s aerospace industry.
The corps is an arm of the Iranian armed forces, and Thursday’s action represents the first time that such an entity has been targeted for sanctions. Until now, such targets have been rogues or at least semi-autonomous from their host state, as in the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Banning any U.S. citizen or entity from dealing with the IRGC and the MODAFL and freezing their U.S. assets effectively targets the Iranian economy, as the bulk of international transactions at some point run through U.S. banks.
The statement names the IRGC as responsible for the Qods force, saying the force backs attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Hezbollah. It says the Qods force “has assisted Hezbollah in rearming in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701,” which ended the summer 2006 Israel-Lebanon war precipitated by Hezbollah’s raid into Israel.
