‘A Boon to the Iranian Regime’: Controversial Initiative by House Firebrands Could Undermine Sanctions

H ouse Republican firebrands say they’re seeking the end of out-of-date and wildly overstretched national-emergency measures. Critics of a new initiative in the House and elsewhere, however, view it as liable to empower terrorist groups.

Tomorrow, House members will consider a series of measures that would eliminate ongoing national emergencies regarding Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Congo. The resolutions would eliminate the emergency authorities granted by the declarations corresponding to each country — and thus remove the legal basis for ongoing U.S. sanctions targeting bad actors there.

Each of the national-emergency declarations up for debate tomorrow is more than a decade old, and the oldest of the group, relating to Iraq, was made in May 2003, soon after the invasion. That has prompted Representative Paul Gosar (R., Ariz.) to lead an effort seeking their revocation. Gosar introduced the resolutions revoking the declarations regarding Libya and Yemen, while Representatives Eli Crane (R., Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), and Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.) seek the revocation of resolutions regarding Iraq, Syria, and Congo, respectively.

Gosar couched this campaign as part of a broader effort to review ongoing emergency declarations. “The National Emergencies Act mandates Congress consider joint resolutions terminating national emergencies every six months. Yet Congress has never reviewed the legitimacy of the national emergency related to Libya or Yemen since their declaration by President Obama,” he told National Review.

But declaring a national emergency is a requirement for imposing sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, so abruptly reversing these existing declarations is likely to have unintended effects.

“If Congress wants to re-exert its influence over U.S. sanctions policy and how sanctions are implemented and enforced, there are ways to do so,” said Matt Zweig, senior policy director at FDD Action, a national-security advocacy group. But ending these national emergencies, he said, “could have some detrimental consequences for U.S. sanctions policy as a whole.”

That’s because the national-emergency declarations in question undergird a significant portion of U.S. sanctions targeting bad actors around the world.

“Terminating these sanctions would unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars of assets for cronies of Russia and Iran, and terrorists,” said a memo issued by the leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and circulated to Republican members of Congress today. The committee is urging them to oppose the resolutions, saying that the actions would empower individuals and entities such as Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq, Syrian war criminals, Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout (who is designated under the Congo sanctions), the Qaddafi family, and the leader of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran.

The committee leadership also wrote that every emergency must be annually renewed — and that “each of these emergencies was repeatedly renewed by President Trump.”

In a message to congressional offices today, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee weighed in, urging members to vote “no” on the Syria, Yemen, and Iraq resolutions, arguing that these would empower Iranian proxies and characterizing the effort as “a boon to the Iranian regime.”

Other sanctions designations that would be reversed by the resolutions include those targeting George Haswani, a Syrian-Russian businessman accused of selling oil to ISIS, to an Iran-backed Iraqi militia leader implicated in the killings of American service members, and even to Qasem Soleimani. Like Qaddafi, Soleimani was killed years ago — but continued U.S. designations have frozen their assets and allowed the U.S. to disburse them to the families of the victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.

“It’s perplexing why any conservative would support the unilateral lifting of sanctions against radical Islamic terrorists across the Middle East who have done so much to kill Americans, murder innocents, and harm our interests,” said Gabriel Noronha, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, who previously worked on Iran at the State Department.

“Either the intent is malicious, or the representatives didn’t do basic homework,” he said.

But Gosar has not shied away from these objections, arguing that there’s a humanitarian rationale for revoking the Yemen declaration. “Heartlessly, the extended national emergency related to Yemen blocks the donations of food, clothing and medicine intended to relieve the human suffering by the people of Yemen. Imagine the number of lives of innocent Yemen children that could have been improved or even saved had this emergency declaration been terminated,” he said. Multiple humanitarian licenses have carved out food and medicine transactions from the Yemen sanctions.

“Almost hilariously, the extended national emergency related to Libya continues to cite Muammar Gaddafi as the reason for the declaration. Gaddafi has been dead for almost 12 years,” Gosar said.

Representative Eli Crane, however, said he believes that the existing Iraq sanctions should remain in place — but under a new authorization. “Congress needs to do its job and stop letting these dated emergency declarations be used as a green light to fuel forever wars,” he told National Review this afternoon.

“I’ve been deployed to Iraq three times as a Navy SEAL — I’m not naive. I trust that anyone who’s concerned about these sanctions will immediately co-sponsor my forthcoming legislation that will move them to their proper lanes of authorization,” he said.

The offices of Gaetz and Boebert did not respond to National Review’s requests for comment about the sanctions designations that their legislation would reverse.