Senate passes new Iran sanctions

On the eve of a fresh round of nuclear talks with Iran, the Senate on Monday passed by unanimous consent a bill imposing harsh new sanctions on Iran, sending it to a conference with the House, where the debate will move behind closed doors.

The legislation, the Johnson-Shelby Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Human Rights Act of 2012, would punish any entity that provides Iran with equipment or technology that facilitates censorship or the suppression of human rights, including weapons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and other riot control equipment — as well as communications jamming, monitoring, and surveillance equipment. It also calls on the Obama administration to develop a more robust Internet freedom strategy for Iran and speed new assistance to pro-democracy activists in the country.

The legislation, named for Senate Banking Committee heads Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Richard Shelby (R-AL), would formally establish that U.S. policy is intended to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and would require the administration to report extensively and repeatedly on its efforts to increase diplomatic and financial pressure on the Iranian regime.

The passage of the legislation in the Senate comes one day before international negotiators meet in Baghdad for another round of discussions with Iran over its nuclear program. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tried to move the bill through the Senate late last week, but Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) objected, arguing that the GOP hadn’t had enough time to review Reid’s manager’s amendment, a claim Reid’s office denies.

Kyl was objecting on behalf of several GOP senators who wanted the bill to explicitly mention that military options were on the table to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Kyl’s demand last week to include such language was new, a response to Reid’s decision to add language explicitly stating that nothing in the bill authorized U.S. military action in Iran. Reid added the new text to appease Sen. Ron Paul (R-TX), who objected to unanimous consent on the bill in March.

Here’s the new language Reid added to the bill Monday:

"It is the sense of Congress that the goal of compelling Iran to abandon efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and other threatening activities can be effectively achieved through a comprehensive policy that includes economic sanctions, diplomacy, and military planning, capabilities and options, and that this objective is consistent with the one stated by President Barack Obama in the 2012 State of the Union Address: ‘Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.’"

With the addition of that language, Kyl lifted his objection.

As noted in the Washington Post’s Right Turn blog, the House version of the Johnson-Shelby bill, passed in December, contains neither the language Reid added for Paul nor the language Reid added for Kyl, and has several other provisions not found in the Senate bill. The conference over the bill hasn’t been scheduled and will occur in secret, per traditional congressional practice.

The conferees have not yet been named.

The most contentious part of the conference could be how to deal with a series of punitive measures proposed by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) in his own amendment to the Johnson-Shelby bill, parts of which Reid added to the Senate bill in a non-binding form.

Kirk’s allies in the House have introduced separate bills containing the Kirk sanctions,  which expand sanctions to include all Iranian banks and larger swaths of other Iranian corporate sectors and those bills are likely to be brought into the House-Senate conference over the Johnson-Shelby bill.

In April, House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), joined with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) to introduce the Iran Financial Sanctions Improvement Act, which contains many of the sanctions measures that Kirk proposed. Other measures found in the Kirk amendment were included by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Robert Dold (R-FL) in a bill they introduced in March called the Iranian Energy Sector and Proliferation Sanctions Act.

In a statement late Monday, Kirk praised the passage of the Johnson-Shelby bill and indicated that Reid had made some commitment to strengthen the bill inside the secret conference.

"Today the U.S. Senate put Iranian leaders on notice that they must halt all uranium enrichment activities or face another round of economic sanctions from the United States," Kirk said.  "I thank Leader McConnell and Senator Menendez for their support in moving this important legislation forward, and I appreciate Leader Reid and Chairman Johnson’s commitment to negotiate even tougher sanctions in conference."

Neither Kirk nor Reid has explained the details of that commitment or responded to questions about it today. The administration has taken no position on the bill or on the Kirk amendment to date.