Those of us who oppose efforts to impose "crippling sanctions" on the Iranian people - an approach supported by many in Congress (and most of the Jewish community) are often belligerently asked: "if you don't support these sanctions, what is your alternative?" The implication being that if we can't propose another course of action then we must support the crippling sanctions, even if nearly everyone agrees that such sanctions won't work and will likely prove counterproductive.
This is of course a silly argument - imagine two doctors arguing about how to treat a patient: Doctor 1: "We've tried everything we can think of and he's not getting better, so I propose we try radiation." Doctor 2: "Are you nuts? Given his condition, all medical science points to the fact that radiation won't do anything to help him and will almost certainly make him worse" Doctor 1: "Well, unless you have a better idea you have no choice but to accept my recommendation." Doctor 2: "Where did you get your medical degree??"
But imaginary dialogues aside, there are some sanctions that actually make sense. For example, it seems self-evident that it makes sense to impose sanctions on those who are enabling Iran to block the internet, censor electronic communications, and otherwise interfere with the ability of Iranian citizens to communicate with each other and the outside world (anyone remember the term "twitter revolution?")
To which I think most people would reply: great idea! Someone in Congress should get working on this!
This is of course a silly argument - imagine two doctors arguing about how to treat a patient: Doctor 1: "We've tried everything we can think of and he's not getting better, so I propose we try radiation." Doctor 2: "Are you nuts? Given his condition, all medical science points to the fact that radiation won't do anything to help him and will almost certainly make him worse" Doctor 1: "Well, unless you have a better idea you have no choice but to accept my recommendation." Doctor 2: "Where did you get your medical degree??"
But imaginary dialogues aside, there are some sanctions that actually make sense. For example, it seems self-evident that it makes sense to impose sanctions on those who are enabling Iran to block the internet, censor electronic communications, and otherwise interfere with the ability of Iranian citizens to communicate with each other and the outside world (anyone remember the term "twitter revolution?")
To which I think most people would reply: great idea! Someone in Congress should get working on this!
Well, they already have, and in a bipartisan manner: on December 14th Reps. Moran (D-VA) and Inglis (R-SC) introduced HR 4301, the
Iran Digital Enhancement Act (IDEA) - legislation that would ensure
that the Iranian people have access to software and
related
technology crucial to internet communications amongst themselves and
between Iran
Unfortunately, while Congress has shown itself ready to expedite "crippling sanctions" (that, as mentioned earlier, won't work and will likely be counterproductive, but around which there has been massive lobbying), there so far has been no interest in moving the IDEA Act (legislation that makes good sense but about which those pushing the "crippling sanctions" have remained silent thus far).
APN strongly supports the IDEA Act. It is timely and constructive legislation. We likewise strongly support HR 4303, the Stand with the Iranian People Act (SWIPA), which similarly makes self-evident good sense -- it would: bar the issuance of visa to or entry into the US of any Iranian government official credibly alleged to have involvement in human rights abuses; prohibit US procurement contracts with companies that have aided Iranian government efforts to stifle free speech by providing censorship or monitoring technology; and authorize US non-profit organizations' activities in Iran for the provision of humanitarian and people-to-people assistance.
Today the New York Time's Roger Cohen weighed in with an op-ed that (while not mentioning IDEA by name) clearly supports that effort as well. Hopefully members of Congress and the groups that claim to care about the Iran issue will start taking note.
February 19, 2010
Target Iran's Censors
By ROGER COHEN
NEW YORK -- Here's what happens when a business linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) is targeted with sanctions. A representative of the Revolutionary Guards finds a lawyer in Dubai and says: "Look, I'm on this stupid U.S. Treasury list. I'll give you 10 percent. Help me set up a shell company in Dubai or Malaysia."
The Treasury Department enemy list ("Specially Designated Nationals") is easy to find. It's at www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/. Revolutionary Guard tycoons in Tehran know that. Once they have a new shell company, say in a cousin's name, they circumvent the list. They go on reaping the heady profits open to the in crowd when sanctions distort an economy.
Iran has lived with sanctions for a long time; its immune systems are highly developed. As much as 20 percent of the gross national product of Dubai is linked to Iran trade. I don't see new "targeted" sanctions disrupting this traffic. Iran's economy, even in a slump, is too big, too diverse and too sophisticated: North Korea it is not.
Still, thanks to Iran's erratic response to President Obama's overtures and its ongoing nuclear nationalism (a more coherent political than weapons program), the United States finds itself in lockstep toward new sanctions.
I expect China, averse to conspicuous isolation, will eventually abstain on a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. They will be imposed. Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence (and a household name in Iran), will burrow away in search of actionable U.S. sanctions against the Iranian regime.
The sanctions will feel cathartic, satisfy the have-to-do-something itch in the Congress, and change nothing. I'm just about resigned to that. But there is a smarter approach to Iran: Instead of constraining trade, throw it open.
On Dec. 15, Richard R. Verma, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the State Department, wrote to Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, informing him that the State Department had asked the Treasury to waive certain sanctions on Iran relating to the export of technology. Yes, waive -- not tighten. (How much have you read about that?)
Verma wrote: "The Department of State is recommending that the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (O.F.A.C.) issue a general license that would authorize downloads of free mass-market software by companies such as Microsoft and Google to Iran necessary for the exchange of personal communications and/or sharing of information over the Internet such as instant messaging, chat and e-mail, and social networking."
Now that's smart! There's a way to bolster the remarkable, still unbowed opposition movement in Iran as well as weaken the Revolutionary Guards' stranglehold on society and the economy. And what has O.F.A.C. done about this request in the past two months?
Nothing.
No license has been issued. It's still illegal for Microsoft to sell MSN Messenger in Iran. Instead, earlier this month, Treasury sanctioned four Guards companies -- a meaningless gesture. Treasury has things upside down.
"With respect to Iran, human rights and free speech efforts have been made illegal under federal law!" said Austin Heap, a brilliant "techie" working for an organization that's been trying to get technology designed to bypass government filters and other censorship into Iran, but has been frustrated by sanctions that make that illegal. "Sanctions are deterring people from doing things to help."
That's right. With the Islamic Republic weaker than at any time in its 31-year history, fractured by regime divisions and confronted by a Green movement it has tried to quash through force, U.S. sanctions are abetting the regime's communications blackouts.
Heap works with Babak Siavoshy, 27, at the Censorship Research Center (C.R.C.), whose engineers have developed software called "Haystack" that makes it near impossible for censors to detect what Internet users are doing.
"Double-click on Haystack and you browse the Internet anonymously and safely," Siavoshy said. "It's encrypted at such a level it would take thousands of years to figure out what you're saying. It's a potent open-society tool. It's just a matter of getting it to Iran -- and that's still illegal."
The C.R.C. has applied for a license from O.F.A.C. to distribute in Iran. Without pro-bono lawyers, it would have given up long ago. They've had to draft hundreds of pages of applications to Treasury.
My understanding is the license may soon be approved. My urgent message to the Obama administration is: Hurry up with this license and the general one for mass market software!
Iranians are resourceful. On thumb drives, SIM cards, encrypted photo files and the like, they'd get Haystack software into the country. The United States is shooting itself in the foot by making this illegal. Hillary Clinton's speech on the importance of an open Internet was good, but right now it's just a speech. Don't shut down on Iran; open up to its promise. Sanctions are a feel-good impasse.
"Tear down this wall!" was a 20th-century cry. It has given way to the 21st century's "Tear down this firewall!" That, not sanctions, is what the I.R.G.C. fears most; and that, not sanctions, should be Obama's priority.
Unfortunately, while Congress has shown itself ready to expedite "crippling sanctions" (that, as mentioned earlier, won't work and will likely be counterproductive, but around which there has been massive lobbying), there so far has been no interest in moving the IDEA Act (legislation that makes good sense but about which those pushing the "crippling sanctions" have remained silent thus far).
APN strongly supports the IDEA Act. It is timely and constructive legislation. We likewise strongly support HR 4303, the Stand with the Iranian People Act (SWIPA), which similarly makes self-evident good sense -- it would: bar the issuance of visa to or entry into the US of any Iranian government official credibly alleged to have involvement in human rights abuses; prohibit US procurement contracts with companies that have aided Iranian government efforts to stifle free speech by providing censorship or monitoring technology; and authorize US non-profit organizations' activities in Iran for the provision of humanitarian and people-to-people assistance.
Today the New York Time's Roger Cohen weighed in with an op-ed that (while not mentioning IDEA by name) clearly supports that effort as well. Hopefully members of Congress and the groups that claim to care about the Iran issue will start taking note.
February 19, 2010
Target Iran's Censors
By ROGER COHEN
NEW YORK -- Here's what happens when a business linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) is targeted with sanctions. A representative of the Revolutionary Guards finds a lawyer in Dubai and says: "Look, I'm on this stupid U.S. Treasury list. I'll give you 10 percent. Help me set up a shell company in Dubai or Malaysia."
The Treasury Department enemy list ("Specially Designated Nationals") is easy to find. It's at www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/. Revolutionary Guard tycoons in Tehran know that. Once they have a new shell company, say in a cousin's name, they circumvent the list. They go on reaping the heady profits open to the in crowd when sanctions distort an economy.
Iran has lived with sanctions for a long time; its immune systems are highly developed. As much as 20 percent of the gross national product of Dubai is linked to Iran trade. I don't see new "targeted" sanctions disrupting this traffic. Iran's economy, even in a slump, is too big, too diverse and too sophisticated: North Korea it is not.
Still, thanks to Iran's erratic response to President Obama's overtures and its ongoing nuclear nationalism (a more coherent political than weapons program), the United States finds itself in lockstep toward new sanctions.
I expect China, averse to conspicuous isolation, will eventually abstain on a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. They will be imposed. Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence (and a household name in Iran), will burrow away in search of actionable U.S. sanctions against the Iranian regime.
The sanctions will feel cathartic, satisfy the have-to-do-something itch in the Congress, and change nothing. I'm just about resigned to that. But there is a smarter approach to Iran: Instead of constraining trade, throw it open.
On Dec. 15, Richard R. Verma, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the State Department, wrote to Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, informing him that the State Department had asked the Treasury to waive certain sanctions on Iran relating to the export of technology. Yes, waive -- not tighten. (How much have you read about that?)
Verma wrote: "The Department of State is recommending that the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (O.F.A.C.) issue a general license that would authorize downloads of free mass-market software by companies such as Microsoft and Google to Iran necessary for the exchange of personal communications and/or sharing of information over the Internet such as instant messaging, chat and e-mail, and social networking."
Now that's smart! There's a way to bolster the remarkable, still unbowed opposition movement in Iran as well as weaken the Revolutionary Guards' stranglehold on society and the economy. And what has O.F.A.C. done about this request in the past two months?
Nothing.
No license has been issued. It's still illegal for Microsoft to sell MSN Messenger in Iran. Instead, earlier this month, Treasury sanctioned four Guards companies -- a meaningless gesture. Treasury has things upside down.
"With respect to Iran, human rights and free speech efforts have been made illegal under federal law!" said Austin Heap, a brilliant "techie" working for an organization that's been trying to get technology designed to bypass government filters and other censorship into Iran, but has been frustrated by sanctions that make that illegal. "Sanctions are deterring people from doing things to help."
That's right. With the Islamic Republic weaker than at any time in its 31-year history, fractured by regime divisions and confronted by a Green movement it has tried to quash through force, U.S. sanctions are abetting the regime's communications blackouts.
Heap works with Babak Siavoshy, 27, at the Censorship Research Center (C.R.C.), whose engineers have developed software called "Haystack" that makes it near impossible for censors to detect what Internet users are doing.
"Double-click on Haystack and you browse the Internet anonymously and safely," Siavoshy said. "It's encrypted at such a level it would take thousands of years to figure out what you're saying. It's a potent open-society tool. It's just a matter of getting it to Iran -- and that's still illegal."
The C.R.C. has applied for a license from O.F.A.C. to distribute in Iran. Without pro-bono lawyers, it would have given up long ago. They've had to draft hundreds of pages of applications to Treasury.
My understanding is the license may soon be approved. My urgent message to the Obama administration is: Hurry up with this license and the general one for mass market software!
Iranians are resourceful. On thumb drives, SIM cards, encrypted photo files and the like, they'd get Haystack software into the country. The United States is shooting itself in the foot by making this illegal. Hillary Clinton's speech on the importance of an open Internet was good, but right now it's just a speech. Don't shut down on Iran; open up to its promise. Sanctions are a feel-good impasse.
"Tear down this wall!" was a 20th-century cry. It has given way to the 21st century's "Tear down this firewall!" That, not sanctions, is what the I.R.G.C. fears most; and that, not sanctions, should be Obama's priority.
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