In Signal to Iran, US Lawmakers Pass Bill Targeting Hezbollah in 425-0 Vote
(CNSNews.com) – By a vote of 425 to 0, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation strengthening sanctions against Iran’s terrorist proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, signaling to Tehran that it will remain a target of Congressional action despite looming sanctions relief under the Iran nuclear agreement.
The bipartisan legislation now goes to President Obama’s desk for signature, the Senate having passed it last month.
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who authored the original bill with ranking member Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), urged the president Wednesday to sign it quickly, saying that it “cracks down on Hezbollah’s fundraising efforts, its operations in Syria, and its efforts to carry out hostilities against the United States and our ally Israel.”
He linked the legislation to the financial boost Iran is expected to garner as the nuclear agreement takes effect in the coming months.
“Under President Obama’s nuclear deal, Iran will soon hit a jackpot worth tens of billions of dollars. Even the president admits this ‘windfall’ of cash will go to activities and groups, including its main terror proxy Hezbollah, that pose ‘a threat to us, and a threat to our allies,’” Royce said, quoting from the president’s press conference [1] following the conclusion of the Iran nuclear talks last July.
At that press conference, Obama conceded that there was “a pace at which they [the Iranians] could support Hezbollah even more” once the nuclear deal and its sanctions relief take effect.
But he indicated that getting the nuclear deal achieved was a higher priority.
“Is the incremental additional money that they’ve got to try to destabilize the region or send to their proxies, is that more important than preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? No,” he said. “This is a matter of us making a determination of what is our priority.”
Prior to al-Qaeda’s attack on 9/11, the Iranian-sponsored Shi’ite terrorist group was responsible for the deaths of more Americans in terror attacks than any other group.
In a 2010 report [2] on Iran’s military power, the Pentagon said that Iran “provides roughly $100-$200 million per year in funding to support Hezbollah.”
The State Department’s most recent annual terrorism report describes Hezbollah as Iran’s “primary beneficiary, and said [3] that Tehran in 2014 continued to provide the group “with training, weapons, and explosives, as well as political, diplomatic, monetary, and organizational aid.”
“Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Lebanese Hezbollah in Lebanon and has trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran,” it stated.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) described Hezbollah as “an Iranian proxy responsible for hundreds of American deaths.”
“[Nuclear] deal or no deal, we cannot allow Iran’s threatening activities to continue without consequence,” he said.
When the Senate passed the legislation in November Hezbollah condemned [4] it as a “crime.”
The legislation aims to restrict Hezbollah’s ability to use funds to support global terror activities.
It takes aim at foreign financial institutions that do business with Hezbollah, and at the terrorist group’s television station, Al-Manar, targeting for sanctions any satellite, Internet or other provider that enters into contracts with it.
The legislation also requires the president to report to Congress on Hezbollah’s involvement in narcotics trafficking, transnational crime, fundraising and money laundering activities – major sources of income – and then take adequate measures against such involvement.
And the president will also have to list those countries that support Hezbollah, or in which the group maintains portions of its logistics networks, in each case showing what the administration is doing to encourage those governments to disrupt those networks.
In the Senate, the bill was sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).
Both urged Obama Wednesday to act quickly to enforce the law.
“Hezbollah and its sponsor Iran should know that America will not back down in the face of terrorism, and we will continue to stand up for our allies,” said Rubio.
“Hezbollah has American blood on its hands and remains an ever-present threat to our national security and that of our allies, especially Israel,” said Shaheen. “This legislation will ensure that our government is comprehensively targeting Hezbollah’s networks of support and holding its backers accountable.”
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