US House committee introduces new sanctions bill against Iran missile program

US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in Congress has introduced new legislation that would expand sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program.

“Today’s important bill requires a comprehensive investigation to identify and designate the companies, banks, and individuals – both inside and outside Iran – which supply the regime’s missile and conventional weapons programs, subjecting them to sanctions,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said in a press release on Thursday.

The bill, the Iran Ballistic Missiles and International Sanctions Enforcement Act, targets Iran’s ballistic missile-related goods, services and technologies.

The measure requires President Donald Trump’s administration to identify the persons and the “foreign and domestic supply chain in Iran that directly or indirectly significantly facilitates, supports, or otherwise aids” the ballistic missile program.

The US Departments of Treasury and State have already imposed sanctions that targets Tehran’s ballistic missile program.

Trump administration officials have argued that Iran’s ballistics program violates the “spirit” of the nuclear agreement and violates a 2010 UN Security Council resolution that calls on Iran not to conduct missile tests.

However, Tehran insists its missile tests do not breach any UN resolutions because they are solely for defense purposes and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.

The Islamic Republic has said it will spare no effort to meet its national security needs, and does not allow any party to intervene in the imperative. 

Washington also claims Iran’s missile program is in breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed Tehran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 states in 2015.

Trump is expected to declare to Congress on Sunday that retaining the 2015 nuclear deal is no longer in the US national interest, opening the possibility for Congress to re-impose sanctions against Iran and undermining a landmark victory of multilateral diplomacy.