US congress denounces Iranian president

Congress signaled its disapproval of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a vote Tuesday to tighten sanctions against his government and a call to designate his Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group.

The swift rebuke was a rare display of bipartisan cooperation in a Congress bitterly divided on the Iraq war. It reflected lawmakers' long-standing nervousness about Tehran's intentions in the region, particularly toward Israel — a sentiment fueled by the pro-Israeli lobby whose influence reaches across party lines in Congress.

"Iran faces a choice between a very big carrot and a very sharp stick," said Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my hope that they will take the carrot. But today, we are putting the stick in place."

The House passed, by a 397-16 vote, a proposal by Lantos, aimed at blocking foreign investment in Iran, in particular its lucrative energy sector. The bill would specifically bar the president from waiving US sanctions.

Current law imposes sanctions against any foreign company that invests $20 million or more in Iran's energy industry, although the US has waived or ignored sanction laws in exchange for European support on nonproliferation issues.

Bill expected to draw criticism

In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman and Jon Kyl proposed a nonbinding resolution urging the State Department to label Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.

Kyl and Lieberman said the proposal does not authorize military force again Iran, but encourages the US to cut off its financial support.

The Bush administration had already been considering whether to blacklist a unit within the Revolutionary Guard, subjecting part of the vast military operation to financial sanctions.

The legislative push came a day after Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust revisionists, questioned who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and declared homosexuals didn't exist in Iran in a tense question-and-answer session at Columbia University.

Lantos' bill was expected to draw criticism from US allies in Europe. During a visit to Washington last week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told lawmakers that France opposes any US legislation that would target European countries operating in Iran. He argued that such sanctions could undermine cooperation on dealing with Iran.