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Obama’s Sanctions Chief to Defend Iran Accord in Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has denounced the Iran nuclear pact.Credit Giuseppe Cacace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s sanctions chief will arrive in Israel on Friday to defend the nuclear containment deal with Iran and try to reassure a government and public deeply opposed to the accord that the United States is still prepared to inflict severe financial penalties on Tehran for its sponsorship of terrorism and support for military proxies.

The Obama aide, Adam J. Szubin, the top Treasury Department official who helped negotiate the accord between Iran and six world powers, will meet with Israeli government officials and foreign policy experts to make his case during a three-day trip, administration officials announced on Thursday. It is part of Mr. Obama’s full-throated effort to build support for the agreement, which faces a vote of disapproval in Congress within weeks.

Mr. Szubin is scheduled to land in Tel Aviv just hours before the president himself is to address American Jews about the deal in a live webcast, the same forum Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel used last month to denounce the agreement.

Continue reading the main story The Iran Deal in 200 Words A short overview of important highlights from the Iran nuclear deal. Obama’s Sanctions Chief to Defend Iran Accord in Israel

A central task for Mr. Szubin will be to defuse the argument made by Mr. Netanyahu and other opponents that the deal — which removes some sanctions on Iran in exchange for new restrictions intended to block its ability to obtain a nuclear weapon — will provide a financial windfall for the worst actors in a government that openly calls for the destruction of Israel.

“I plan to focus on the J.C.P.O.A., but also on Treasury’s continued efforts to target Iran’s malign activities,” Mr. Szubin said, using an abbreviation for the accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The talks will focus on how American and Israeli intelligence and security officials can better contain Iranian-backed groups like Hezbollah, as well as the domestic Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and paramilitary Quds force.

“Intensifying those sanctions and ensuring that they bite ever deeper is a core part of my mission,” he said.

Mr. Szubin, who requested the meetings, plans to sit down with senior Israeli officials, including Dore Gold, the director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Yossi Cohen, Mr. Netanyahu’s national security adviser; and Yuval Steinitz, the energy minister, who has been a leading spokesman against the Iran deal.

Mr. Szubin will also convene a round-table discussion with members of several think tanks based in the Middle East, an effort to shape opinions of the deal in a country where the public is overwhelmingly opposed to it.

The meetings will focus on the complex terms of the accord, including which individuals and groups will receive sanctions relief and when, and how Treasury plans to enforce the penalties that will remain in place under the deal.

“We plan to enforce them with all the toughness that people have come to expect from the U.S. Treasury,” Mr. Szubin said he would tell the Israelis.

Foes of the agreement have seized on the sanctions relief as a major shortcoming, arguing that some of Iran’s most dangerous individuals and groups will benefit financially from the deal.

Under the accord, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of the Quds force, would be removed in eight years from the United Nations and European lists of individuals and entities subject to sanctions. However, he would remain on the American list, where Treasury officials placed him in 2011 after the Obama administration accused him of involvement in a plot to kill Adel al-Jubeir, a former Saudi ambassador in Washington who is now Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister.

The Treasury Department has also subjected him to sanctions for his role in supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and for the Quds force’s support for the Taliban and other militant groups.

Mr. Szubin said General Suleimani and others who remain under sanctions by Treasury would still effectively be cut off from global financial activity once the United Nations and European sanctions were removed because no bank would be likely to risk being frozen out of the United States banking system by doing business with them.

“That is an extremely powerful deterrent, so I don’t expect that these individuals are going to find their way back into the international financial system,” Mr. Szubin said.

Read more http://rss.nytimes.com/c/34625/f/640350/s/495b6207/sc/7/l/0L0Snytimes0N0C20A150C0A80C280Cworld0Cmiddleeast0Cobamas0Esanctions0Echief0Eto0Edefend0Eiran0Eaccord0Ein0Eisrael0Bhtml0Dpartner0Frss0Gemc0Frss/story01.htm


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