- 23 January 2009
- 2 Comments
- Sanctions
Obama’s Treasury pick vows financial action against Iran
23 January 2009 Posted By Sahar Jooshani
AFP reports that Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary Timoty Geithner will continue to put financial pressure on the Iranian banking system.
Obama’s Treasury pick vows financial action against Iran
January 22, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Treasury secretary-designate Timothy Geithner vowed to pursue the US government’s financial offensive on Iran to stamp out its alleged weapons proliferation and support for terrorism.
In written answers to members of the Senate finance committee, released Thursday as part of his confirmation process, Geithner noted that Treasury has blacklisted a number of Iranian banks and companies over those concerns.
“If confirmed as secretary of the Treasury, I would consider the full range of tools available to the US Department of the Treasury, including unilateral measures, to prevent Iran from misusing the financial system to engage in proliferation and terrorism,” he wrote in response to senators’ questions.
“I agree wholeheartedly that the Department of the Treasury has done outstanding work in ratcheting up the pressure on Iran, both by vigorously enforcing our sanctions against Iran and by sharing information with key financial actors around the world about how Iran’s deceptive conduct poses a threat to the integrity of the financial system,” Geithner said.
2 Responses to “Obama’s Treasury pick vows financial action against Iran”
This approach to putting pressure on Iran’s financial system comes straight out of the Bush administration playbook. Stuart Levey, the Treasury official behind it all, apparently has a friend in Timothy Geithner. Not exactly the change we hoped for…
Patrick
I agree. It looks like things won’t change unless there is a breakthrough in relations. The Obama administration, as under the Bush Administration still is pushing the Europeans to get on board with many of the unilateral sanctions against Banks Melli and Sepah. The Europeans have only enacted watered down sanctions against these banks, in spite of Bush administration pressure in the past.
Unfortunately, the ironic thing is that if Obama seeks dialogue with the Iranians and nothing happens right away it would give the Europeans and even the Russians and Chinese the cover they need to slap on really tough sanctions.
I would suggest you really look at how China acts in the next few months because as Geithner noted in the hearing there might be a review of China’s exchange policy which could give the Chinese the impression that we’re back to the contentious, their-a-strategic-competitor days under Clinton again. And there are already rumblings from Beijing about the new administration’s tone as a threat to China’s ‘peaceful rise’. This fact alone could further complicate Obama’s reaching out for Chinese support against the nuclear program in the Security Council.