Haaretz
Adar 15, 5767
The
United States is finding it difficult to enlist the support of key EU
nations and China for imposing economic sanctions, U.S. Under Secretary
for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey said on
Sunday.
Levey, arrived in Israel on Sunday for talks on using
economic sanctions to step up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear
program.
In a meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Israel, he
discussed Israel's and the U.S.'s joint effort to stop the flow of weapons
from states that support terror to terror organizations. The effort will
focus first and foremost on Iran.
Livni and Levey met Sunday in
order to consolidate a decisive line within European states against
financial institutions which conduct business with Iran. Olmert and Livni
updated the American statesman during their talks with information on
Iran's methods of transferring funds to Hezbollah and
Hamas.
Israeli and American officials began a series of talks
Sunday on measures that will target companies and banks involved with
Iranian businesses that have ties to Tehran's nuclear program or provide
assistance to Hezbollah and Palestinian militant organizations.
Levey was also to hold talks with senior officials in Mossad, the
Foreign Ministry, the National Security Council, and the Atomic Energy
Commission.
Olmert informed the Bush Administration recently that
he intended to appoint an official who will focus exclusively on the
economic effort against Iran. As a result, the Forum for Preventive
Diplomacy, headed by Mossad chief Meir Dagan, was bolstered with economic
experts.
The Israeli officials will hear Sunday updates on the
American efforts to convince European and other firms to avoid doing
business with Iran.
Israel in turn will offer the visiting U.S.
officials assistance in identifying firms that work with Iran and the
trail of Iranian funding to nuclear and terrorist activities.
Levey believes that imposing a boycott on the banking and trading
system of Iran would be much more effective than sanctions. It would not
require long diplomatic efforts or complex legislation. It would be
sufficient for the administration to announce that a company or a bank is
on a black list, and they are immediately cut off from the American
financial system, are unable to trade in dollars or make deals with banks
in the U.S.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Levey said
that Section 311 added to the Patriot Act several years ago, "has been
more powerful than many thought possible." Section 311 authorizes the
Treasury to mark a foreign financial institution a "primary money
laundering concern," effectively choking it off from the U.S. financial
system.
Levey's boss, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt,
said that the boycott on banks is particularly effective because of the
effects of globalization, which link all financial institutions in the
world to the same network.
"As banks do their risk-reward
analysis, they must now take into account the very serious risk of doing
business in Iran, and what the risks would be if they were found to be
part of a terrorist or proliferation transaction," says Kimmitt.
The first Iranian bank to be blacklisted was Bank Saderat, which
is owned by the Iranian government and which was accused of transferring
$50 million to Hamas since 2001.
In January 2007, Bank Sepah was
also blacklisted and accused of transfering funds for Iran's ballistic
missile projects.
In recent months Levey and other American
officials held talks with bank managers and finance ministers around the
world, warning them of the possible implications of doing business with
Iran.
Our goal, Levey says, is "to create an internal debate about
whether these policies [of defiance] make sense. And that's happening in
Iran. People with business sense realize that this conduct makes it hard
to continue normal business relationships."