Treasury sanctions Revolutionary Guard officials in response to Iran protest crackdown

The Biden administration took its first tangential steps to punish Iranian officials blamed for orchestrating crackdowns on protesters in the country in an order from the US Treasury extending sanctions to two Revolutionary Guard officials.

Protests have continued across Iran in one of the most defiant shows of resistance against the government in decades following the death of a young woman in police custody; the woman, Mahsa Amini, was detained for not properly wearing a traditional head covering.

A Treasury bulletin announced the news Wednesday morning, declaring the sanctions a show of “the United States’ commitment to support the Iranian people’s call for accountability and justice, as well as their right to freely exchange information, including online”.

“Forty days after the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, Iranians continue to bravely protest in the face of brutal suppression and disruption of internet access,” said Under Secretary Brian Nelson.

“The United States is imposing new sanctions on Iranian officials overseeing organizations involved in violent crackdowns and killings, including of children, as part of our commitment to hold all levels of the Iranian government accountable for its repression.”

Among those sanctioned were two Guard officials, intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi and deputy commander for operations Abbas Nilforushan. Several regional officials, including the governor of the Sistan and Baluchistan province, were also hit with sanctions.

It’s a relatively minor move by the administration but signals that the White House and broader administration may be done with any effort to allay the feelings of Tehranian officials in order to seek a return to the status quo which was constructed by the Obama administration with the signing of a multi-state nuclear accord in 2015.

The Biden administration announced plans to seek a resumption of that agreement after taking office in 2021, infuriating both conservatives as well as some more hawkish members of Joe Biden’s own party while delighting progressives who saw the agreement as the best shot at avoiding armed conflict with Iran to avert the possibility of it obtaining nuclear weapons. Conservative Democrats on Capitol Hill made no effort to conceal their opposition to the Obama-negotiated JCPOA, including the former top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel.

The deal appears to be doomed, at least for the time being. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters flatly at a recent press conference earlier in October that the administration didn’t predict any movement on negotiations any time soon, giving the impression that talks had stalled completely.

Adding to the difficulty of the Biden administration’s efforts was the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions that the Trump administration pursued for several years. Those damaging economic measures are strongly supported by hawks on Capitol Hill as well as opponents of the Iranian government such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The NCRI’s deputy Washington office director called the Biden administration’s move “welcome and long overdue” on Wednesday and called for the imposition of “additional punitive political, diplomatic, and commercial sanctions against the Iranian regime”.