The agreement also promised that the six world powers would lift sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program as well as multilateral and national sanctions, and work toward Iran’s access to trade, technology, finance, and energy. The agreement did not address lifting of sanctions related to ballistic missile technologies and sale of conventional weapons or those supposedly helpful to Iran's terrorist support and human rights abuses, sanctions that were imposed on Iran in 1995 by President Clinton's administration. Yet, the agreement stressed that Iran's own long held assets of $100 billion would be released and sanctions on the sale of food, medicine, and civilian aircraft would be removed.
In the beginning, many Iranian Americans, Jewish-Americans, and people around the world supported the President’s efforts, but there has been strong opposition as well. For example, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) campaigned to ensure that the deal would not come to pass. UANI also put similar pressures on Nokia and General Electric to refrain from conducting business in Iran. Furthermore, the House of Representatives has passed a measure to block Boeing’s anticipated civilian aircraft sale to Iran, worth $25 billion.
Despite the opposition, President Obama has pushed forward the Iran deal as one of his most important initiatives. Among the improvements are relative normalization of Iran’s banking connectivity to the SWIFT network, the lifting of bans on insurance activities with Western European companies, and lifting of obstacles in insuring Iranian ships carrying oil and exports.
Sanctions are only effective if fair and directed at criminals, not applied to a whole group of innocent and powerless bystanders. These prejudicial policies based on false assumptions need to be challenged and the UN Security Council resolution should be supported.
