The US announced on Wednesday that it was sanctioning Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif.
The move follows the US decision a month ago to impose sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and those associated with him or his office.
Zarif acts on Khamenei’s behalf, the Treasury Department explained in a statement announcing the new measure.
“Zarif implements [Khamenei’s] reckless agenda, and is the regime’s primary spokesperson around the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stated.
“Iran’s Foreign Ministry is not merely the diplomatic arm of the Islamic Republic, but also a means of advancing many of the Supreme Leader’s destabilizing policies,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo similarly affirmed, as he charged that “Zarif, a senior regime official and apologist, has for years now been complicit” in the regime’s “malign activities.”
The Treasury Department charged that Iran’s Foreign Ministry coordinates with the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC-QF), describing it as one of the “regime’s most nefarious state entities.”
The head of the Quds Force, Qasim Soleimani, was designated by the US for several violations. Most notably, in October 2011, he was sanctioned following a failed Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir.
The Treasury Department also charged that “high-ranking officials” from Iran’s Foreign Ministry “have engaged in and funded efforts to influence elections.”
It did not specify when and where Iran attempted to influence elections. However, last week The Washington Post reported on Iranian attempts to influence US public opinion through the manipulation of social media.
One firm that studies online disinformation told the Post that in the month of June alone, Twitter took down 1,666 Iranian accounts. One-quarter of the tweets from those accounts were in English, aimed at Americans and a broader international audience.
Iranian “disinformation teams,” the Post explained, “initially developed their tactics while manipulating domestic political conversation” and then gradually expanded their “operations to include more languages, more themes and foreign targets.”
In sanctioning Zarif, the Treasury Department also revealed that Iran’s Foreign Ministry had “sought to facilitate the release of two IRGC-QF operatives from a foreign country by making payments to foreign judiciary officials.” It did not specify the country in question.
The consequences of the latest US move are unclear. Zarif, himself, seemed to brush it off, tweeting, “It has no effect on me or my family, as I have no property or interests outside of Iran.”
However, the US could, possibly, refuse him a visa to visit the UN in New York, as Al-Jazeera suggested.
The US “continues to seek a diplomatic solution” with Iran, Pompeo affirmed, and “the only path forward is a comprehensive deal that addresses the full range of its threats.”
“Until then, our campaign of diplomatic isolation and maximum economic pressure will continue,” he concluded.