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Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-iran-20120218,0,6761739.story
Obama Administration Takes Back Seat on Iran Sanctions
(Los Angeles Times) Paul Richter - In recent months, the toughest moves to deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions have come from a bipartisan group in Congress and European allies, especially Britain and France. The White House at first resisted these steps before embracing them as inevitable. The administration has imposed dozens of sanctions on Iran since 2009, but it has carefully calibrated their effect, fearing that too powerful a blow to the world's third-largest oil exporter could cause an oil price increase. This month, Congress began crafting legislation that would essentially cut Iran out of the global clearinghouse for international financial transactions known as SWIFT. The far-reaching step could inflict severe damage to Iran's economy by restricting the ability of banks to move funds in or out of the country. Top administration officials late last year were strongly resistant when Congress slapped Iran's central bank with harsh sanctions. "The Obama administration was, in fact, inclined to continue a kind of incremental ratcheting of sanctions, but thanks to one of the most universal votes we've seen in a divided Capitol Hill in several years, the administration was really forced to move forward with the decision to sanction the central bank," said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.