The Obama administration’s emerging “new” Iran policy, reportedly favoring “targeted” sanctions over the wider and more aggressive approach proposed by Congress, is sooooo 2009.
According to leaks from administration officials, Obama aides are now preparing a set of sanctions that would target “discrete elements” of the clerical regime, mostly commanders of the Revolutionary Guards. Those aides pooh-pooh wider sanctions, like imposing an embargo on refined petroleum, as the House of Representatives called for in a recent resolution.
There are two reasons for this approach, as The Washington Post explained the administration’s thinking last week: to “avoid alienating the Iranian public — while keeping the door ajar” for diplomatic negotiations with the mullahs over the nuclear issue.
