U.S. pressures Iran with unprecedented new sanctions

The Bush administration imposed sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday – the harshest in nearly three decades – cutting off key Iranian military and banking institutions from the American financial system for Tehran’s alleged support for terrorism and nuclear weapons ambitions.\nIn the broadest U.S. unilateral penalties on Iran since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, the administration slapped sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, a main unit of its defense ministry, three of its largest banks and eight people that it said are engaged in missile trade and back extremist groups throughout the Middle East.\nSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the moves would further isolate the Islamic republic’s government by further distancing it from the international economy and discouraging its trading partners from continuing to do \nbusiness with it.\nAt the same time, they stressed that offers for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program remain on the table and that the sacnctions are not a sign of imminent military action. The U.S. officials insist – over Iranian denials – that the nuclear program is a cover for atomic weapons development.\n“Unfortunately, the Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security,” through its nuclear program, production and export of ballistic missiles and backing for Shia insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Rice said.\nThe United States has long labeled Iran a state supporter of terrorism and has been working for years to gain support for tougher sanctions from the international community aimed at keeping the country from developing nuclear weapons. It has won two U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions but a third has been held up by Chinese and Russian opposition.\nAnd Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized it, saying new international sanctions are not advisable.\n“Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?” Putin said in a veiled reference to the U.S. push for harsher international sanctions. “It’s not the best way to resolve the situation by running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand.”