Congress Votes to Impose Embargo on Iran

                                                                                                     The Council on Foreign Relations

“Congress on Thursday approved tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran’s energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran,” Reuters reports. “The House of Representatives passed the bill 408-8 and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law. The Senate had approved it 99-0 earlier in the day.”

Congress has pushed for crippling sanctions against Iran for months. At the behest of Obama — in other words, at the behest of the elite — Congress held off until the U.N. Security Council and the European Union agreed on new multilateral sanctions. Congress, however, believes more punitive measures are still required in order to punish the Islamic state for its nuclear energy program. Iran is permitted under the NPT to develop nuclear energy but Congress, Obama, Israel and the Europeans insist the program is a cover for a nuclear weapons program.

“The U.N. sanctions, though a good first step, are quite tepid. And they are tepid because there are other members of the Security Council who want to keep doing that business with Iran. … The United States … has to pass these unilateral sanctions,” declared Democrat senator Barbara Mikulski.

The U.S. has infused the Gulf states with armaments and currently has an armada of warships patrolling Iran’s shores. “Iran’s rulers will sense that the conventional balance of power is tilting dramatically against them,” explains the Council on Foreign Relations.