October 25, 2007 (LPAC)--Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced, in a Thursday morning press conference, that the United States was imposing a new set of sanctions on Iran, including designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard and its al Quds force as terrorist organizations. The sanctions also target three Iranian state owned banks: Bank Melli and Mellat for their involvement in proliferation activities, and Bank Saderat as a terrorist financier. The sanctions also target as many as 20 Iranian individuals and organizations tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

What these sanctions mean, is, that, no U.S. citizen or private organization will be allowed to engage in financial transactions with these persons and entities, in addition, any assets that these designees have under U.S. jurisdiction will be immediately frozen.

These sanctions are being imposed unilaterally due to the fact that over the past summer, U.S. officials sought to convince other countries involved in the international sanctions effort against Iran's enrichment program to join in targeting the Revolutionary Guard and other groups. But, the other world powers notably Russia and China, balked at the proposed sanction; The U.S. wanted to intermingle a new program of sanctions for terrorism with the existing Iran sanctions directed at counterproliferation.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said, "We endorse the U.S. administration's efforts to apply further pressure on the Iranian Regime and we are prepared to lead the way to a third resolution of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council and at the same time support tougher European Union sanctions."