U.S. said to plan new sanctions on Iran after missile test

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's administration is expected to impose new sanctions on Iran as early as Friday to punish the country for sponsoring terrorism and testing ballistic missiles, according to two people familiar with the plans.

The move toward sanctions come after national security adviser Michael Flynn said Wednesday that Iran's recent actions showed it to be 'in defiance” of the U.N. Security Council resolution passed after a nuclear deal was reached in 2015 between the Islamic Republic and six nations, including the U.S. and Russia. Flynn and Trump have both said Iran is 'on notice” since its latest missile test last weekend.

As many as 17 entities may face sanctions for actions connected to Iran's ballistic missile work, according to the people, who asked not to be identified in advance of an announcement. An additional seven or eight entities may be punished for terrorism-related actions, they said. The groups would be designated under existing presidential executive orders.

The sanctions aren't directed at Iran's nuclear program and wouldn't directly affect the agreement forged under President Barack Obama's administration that eased restrictions in exchange for Iran's promise not to develop nuclear weapons, according to the people.

The sanctions have been planned for some time, but the process was accelerated after the latest missile test, one of the people said. A White House spokesman declined to comment, and officials at the State Department and Treasury Department didn't respond to requests for comment.

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said Wednesday that a missile test Sunday was part of Iran's ongoing defense program, according to the Tasnim news agency. Iran urged the U.S. not to overreact to it.

Iran will 'vigorously continue its defense activities,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Sen. Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters Thursday that he had talked to Flynn and was 'excited” about what the administration was planning, but declined to discuss details.

'I know they are going to take a very different tack on Iran and I think they always felt they needed to do that,” Corker of Tennessee said. 'I think they've gotten into office and they've read intelligence reports and they realize how much the Obama administration was just turning their head on these violations.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who serves on the Intelligence Committee, urged the administration 'to be very careful” in its response to the Iranian missile test.

With an election coming up in the Islamic Republic, Feinstein said, 'it's a very sensitive time in Iran and America's interests are really better served in having a moderate government than having a fundamentalist government.”

A bipartisan group of 22 senators, including Corker and Ben Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, wrote a letter to Trump on Thursday calling for the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran in response to the missile test.

'We look forward to supporting your administration's efforts to hold Iran accountable, and note the positive step taken by the United States calling for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council,” wrote the senators, 10 of whom are Democrats.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed legislation Thursday to punish Iran for what they say is support for terrorism, human-rights abuses and its ballistic-missile program. Among other steps, that measure would impose new sanctions on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and against people who 'knowingly aid” its missile program. Similar legislation was previously introduced in the Senate.