The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 20 Iranian companies and financial institutions and reclassified nine more as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities subject to secondary U.S. sanctions. While the Treasury Department's imposition of sanctions on Iran is nothing new, the nuances of this latest move mark a significant escalation in U.S. strategy. The 20 businesses are tied to the Bonyad Taayon Basij network, which has established a number of shell companies in Iran's auto, mining, metals and banking sectors to mask ownership as a way to shield itself from sanctions. OFAC now claims that the companies in the network have dealings across the Middle East and Europe that make them worthy targets. The critical difference between this set of sanctions and earlier ones is that the penalized organizations have multiple -- in the most extreme case, seven to eight -- degrees of separation from the...
