On October 31, the state-run Kayhan newspaper affiliated to Khamenei reflected the Iranian regime’s fear and panic regarding implementation of the U.S. Treasury’s sanctions against the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and wrote:
“In August of this year, the ‘Katsa 2017’ Act because of its wide range became known as the “mother of sanctions” and “black hole sanctions.”
“In fact, this plan, like other anti-regime plans, was approved by the Democrats and Republicans in full coordination and became law and proved once again that they have no controversy in hostility with the regime.”
“The US Treasury Department officially launched the Katsa Act by identifying the Revolutionary Guards under the Executive Order 13224.”
“Following that, the Treasury Department announced that based on the Katsa law, it would have until October 31 to identify the offices, institutions and individuals affiliated to the IRGC under Executive Order 13224.”
“Accordingly, the serious start of the mothers of sanctions is switched on today, that is, when the Treasury Department places a large number of individuals and institutions on the sanctions list due to their connection with the Revolutionary Guards.”
“In this plan, there are a variety of economic restrictions that ranges from blocking assets in American territory to prohibiting the provision of bank services to a sanctioned person or entity. In particular, because of the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guards in the list of terrorist organizations, it has many economic consequences for the system. Accordingly, it can be said that the condition of the banking relationship is not going to go back to a situation that existed before the nuclear agreement (JCPOA), but rather to a much worse situation.”
“An important feature of this plan is inclusion of the Revolutionary Guards in the list of terrorist organizations… The dangerous and worrying part is that individuals and institutions that have a relationship with the IRGC should be sanctioned. The situation becomes more complicated when a single Iranian individual or entity is on the list of sanctions, no foreign bank would cooperate or get involved, and the very fragile network that has been formed after the nuclear agreement will be shaken sharply.”
“The black hole is something that draws all the objects close to itself into the hole… Given that the IRGC is a formal institution with systematic relations with governmental and nongovernmental structures, it causes a large part of the governing body including the government or other branches and institutions go to the sanctions list. It acts like a black hole, and sanctions a large number of institutions unpredictably. It is even conceivable that the central bank, which was taken out of the sanctions list after the nuclear agreement, will return to the sanctions list.”
After the nuclear deal… only small banks were willing to accept the risk of cooperation and they were cooperating … But now, suppose that all of a sudden several thousand individuals and entities are being banned by entering this list. It is natural that at that time, no bank, even small banks, would cooperate with the system. So the situation returns to before the nuclear agreement or even worse.”
“The fact is that with the adoption of this plan, there will be nothing left of the JCPOA (nuclear agreement) whether we talk about the violation or not (State-run Kayhan daily, 31 October 2017).”
