Energy

Use existing legislation to combat Iran’s growing threat

George Landrith Since 1999, George Landrith has served as the President of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute – a pubic policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. The Institute maintains offices in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Wyoming and has thousands of grassroots supporters in virtually every state. The Institute is recognized as a national leader on the most important issues facing America today, including: national security, market-based environmental solutions, energy, property rights, taxes and regulation. Previously, he served as the Vice President and General Counsel to the National Legal Center for the Public Interest. Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He also graduated, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University studying political science and economics. Mr. Landrith is admitted to the bar in Virginia and California and is a member of the United States Supreme Court bar. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. He was appointed by then Governor George Allen and confirmed by the General Assembly to serve on the Virginia Workforce 2000 Advocacy Council. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. Mr. Landrith has appeared frequently on television and radio news programs and his work has been printed in over 100 newspapers across the nation, including: Washington Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Daily News, National Review, Sacramento Bee, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Providence Journal, and Human Events. He has been quoted in many of the nation’s leading papers, including: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Mr. Landrith lives in Virginia with his wife, Laura, and their seven children.
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Had the United States and its European allies acted earlier as promised to impose tougher sanctions against Iran, the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East may not have grown to the dangerous level it has reached today. And if we had acted earlier, President Obama might not find himself in the unenviable position of having to convince the UN Security Council to take seriously the threat of a nuclear Middle East.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has continued to defy calls that it cease its development of nuclear weapons capabilities. By continuing to stall for time to develop his weapons, while taunting the West with his denials of the Holocaust and his most recent comments that the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were a fabrication to justify invasions of Muslim land, the Iranian regime reveals both its recklessness and its dangerous ideology.

The House and Senate have each passed bills imposing sanctions on the exporting of fuel to Iran with overwhelming support from both parties, and the president. Unfortunately, they have yet to pass a common version of the legislation so it can become law. Other ally nations similarly want to stop Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons but are also unable to act swiftly and multilaterally.

Despite the false starts and hesitation to impose tougher sanctions, there’s still time. It’s important that Obama—even in the face of the uphill battle he faces to convince countries such as China, Russia, Turkey and Brazil—that a nuclear-free Middle-East is in their best interest as well.

Fortunately, there have been ever-growing calls for Congress to demand greater Administration enforcement of the existing sanctions law—the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996—which sanctions businesses that make energy-related investments in Iran that exceed $20 million.

As a recent report published in the March 7 edition of The New York Times points out, over $107 billion has been awarded to businesses working with Iran in the last decade, despite the 1996 Act. This includes $15 billion that was used as direct investments in Iran’s energy economy.

The act itself gives the president the power to deny access to any entity working or investing in Iran to governmental services such as federal contracts, export-import bank loans, American bank loans exceeding $10 million/year, American markets, military technology and treasury bonds. At a minimum, President Obama must get serious about enforcing that existing law, and provide ample reason for foreign companies and nations not to look the other way as Iran continues its nuclear goals.

Enforcement of the 1996 Act would give companies doing business with Iran’s energy sector a clear alternative: Work with the United States, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, with 300,000,000 consumers, or with Iran.

George Landrith is president of Frontiers of Freedom. Frontiers of Freedom Institute an educational institute whose mission is to promote public policy based on the principles of individual freedom, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, and traditional American values as found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.