According to The Hill, Republican senators are planning to introduce a bill to sanction Iran for its support of terrorist activities throughout the Middle East and its human rights abuses in the coming days.
“I reject our current posture of willful ignorance and inaction towards Iran's terrorist activities, illegal missile testing, funding Assad's war, and human rights abuses,” says Sen. Mark Kirk. “The Administration’s response cannot once again be it’s ‘not supposed to be doing that’ as Iran continues to walk all over U.S. foreign policy and the international community,"
He is joined by 15 other Republican senators including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
"Iran Terrorism and Human Rights Sanctions Act of 2016" would include:
1) impose new sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Mahan Air, an Iranian airline that has assisted the IRGC and IRGC-Qods force in spreading terrorism and militancy throughout the Middle East;
2) codify the current prohibition against Iran’s direct and indirect access to the U.S. financial system, while also streamlining and strengthening the stringent requirements for the president to remove Iran or any other country from the state sponsors of terrorism list;
3) impose new sanctions against Iran for human rights abuses.
The bill co-sponsors include Sens. Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, Rob Portman, Pat Roberts, Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton , Jerry Moran, Johnny Isakson, Marco Rubio, Dan Coats, Cory Gardner, Kelly Ayotte, and Lisa Murkowski.