Vice President Mike Pence urged the Iranian people to “press on with courage in the cause of freedom” as the United States imposed sanctions on an array of Tehran’s international proxies.
“The United States will not stand idly by while Iranian-backed militias spread terror,” Pence said Thursday at the State Department’s ministerial on religious freedom. “But the people of the United States of America have a message to the long-suffering people of Iran: Even as we stand strong against the leaders in Tehran, know that we are with you.”
President Trump’s team is imposing human rights sanctions on two commanders of Iranian-controlled militias that “terrorize the people of the Nineveh plain, which is still recovering from the days of ISIS’s brutal reign” in Iraq, the vice president announced. That decision is just one of two Thursday moves by the Treasury Department to crack down on Iran’s foreign operatives.
“Treasury is taking action to shut down an Iranian nuclear procurement network that leverages Chinese- and Belgium-based front companies to acquire critical nuclear materials and benefit the regime’s malign ambitions,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a Thursday afternoon bulletin. “Iran cannot claim benign intent on the world stage while it purchases and stockpiles products for centrifuges.”
The new designations are emblematic of the multifaceted confrontation underway between the United States and Iran. Trump has renewed numerous U.S. sanctions on Iran since withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal last year, an exit that his national security team justified in part by arguing that the pact provided Iran with the revenue needed to fund destabilizing military operations throughout the Middle East.
U.S. officials are worried about Iran’s use of Shia Muslim militias to expand military and political influence in Iraq and other countries, for instance. Pence highlighted the sanctions imposed on militia leaders, but the Treasury Department simultaneously targeted two corrupt former regional governors, including one current member of Iraq’s parliament whom the department said in its sanctions announcement “has been known to protect his personal interests by accommodating Iran-backed proxies that operate outside of state control.”
The twin announcements come just hours after Iranian state-run media confirmed that the regime had seized a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has sabotaged multiple oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in recent months, in retaliation over renewed sanctions, and shot down an American military drone. That incident nearly provoked a U.S. counterstrike, while Tehran’s subsequent decision to begin enriching uranium at levels banned by the nuclear deal has raised the prospect of European allies joining Trump’s team in exiting the pact.
“The U.S. government is deeply concerned by the Iranian regime’s uranium enrichment and other provocative behaviors, and will continue to target all who provide support to Iran’s nuclear program,” Mnuchin said.
