Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced an amendment today to the National Defense Authorization act, or the defense budget, that would sanction Iran’s central bank. The amendment was designed by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) to collapse Iran’s currency and, therefore, economy. Asked about the sanctions last month, he said in an interview that he thought it was “okay to take food from the mouths” of ordinary Iranians because of the actions of their government.

The Obama administration flirted with the idea of sanctioning the Iranian Central Bank, with Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen saying that they were “looking very actively” at imposing such measures. But officials have since warned against the broad sanctions.

Director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control Adam Szubin said this week at a House of Representatives hearing that the Central Bank sanctions could actually benefit Iran and hurt the U.S. and global economies by causing oil prices to spike:

There are very real scenarios in which an oil spike might hit. [...]

If there is a hike in the price of oil, Iran gains. If there is a spike in the price of oil…there could be profound harm to the global economic recovery and a windfall to Iran.

The amendment also constricts the administration’s ability to conduct its foreign policy. In most matters, the president is afforded a foreign policy waiver to free his hand to make policy and maintain relations with other countries. But the Kirk amendment “require(s) the President to impose sanctions on foreign financial institutions that conduct transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.” The waiver, in this case, lasts only 60 days and must be renewed and certified to Congress, and only in the case that allowing the financial transactions is “necessary to the national security interest of the United States.”

The sanctions, however, could be difficult to implement. “[F]oreign financial institutions that conduct transactions with the Central Bank of Iran” might include entities such as European central banks that are conducting what, according to their own and international laws, are completely legal business in and with Iran that is routed through the central bank.

This summer, more than 90 senators signed onto a letter to Obama, led by Kirk and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supporting the notion of sanctioning Iran’s central bank.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) eagerly awaited report on Iran’s nuclear program delivered few surprises and, while offering details of a number of dual-use technologies under development in Iran, did not assert that Iran had resumed a full-scale nuclear weapons program. Eager to capitalize on the media coverage of the IAEA report, congressional hawks are pushing to impose “crippling” sanctions on the Iranian central bank, a step that would have devastating economic and political effects in Iran and, potentially, send oil prices skyrocketing.

The White House indicates that such measures are “not really currently on the table” but some of the more right-wing voices in Washington are eager to impose such drastic sanctions.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who has threatened to “take food out of the mouths” of Iranians, issued a statement on Monday, announcing he will lead a bipartisan campaign of 92 senators to enact sanctions against Bank Markazi, Iran’s central bank.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) issued a statement saying:

Time is short and options are limited. Last week, I proposed moving forward and sanctioning the very core of Iran’s financing of its nuclear program: the Central Bank of Iran. I urge President Obama to make the Central Bank of Iran’s proliferation activity the target of coordinated multilateral sanctions.

And GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that, as president, he would impose “crippling economic sanctions” on Iran’s central bank.

But a closer look at what central bank sanctions might entail raises serious questions.

Central bank sanctions may disrupt oil markets and damage U.S. and global economic recoveries; weaken multilateral sanctions efforts if U.S. allies are unwilling to sign on; and extract a shocking humanitarian toll on ordinary Iranian civilians.

In fact, central bank sanctions may run counter to U.S. interests and actually strengthen the Iranian regime. Mehdi Karroubi, an influential reformist politician in Iran, warns that “sanctions have given an excuse to the government to suppress the opposition by blaming them for the unstable situation in the country,” and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria writes, “[Sanctions'] basic effect has been to weaken civil society and strengthen the state — the opposite of what we should be trying to do in that country.”

Proponents of central bank sanctions say that it is the only way to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and a military confrontation. But the reality is that central bank sanctions have a bad track record of failing to achieve their aims and, according to University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape, “economic sanctions are often a prelude to using military force.”

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), one of Washington’s most reliably hawkish politicos on Iran, made clear yesterday that he wants to go over the heads of the Iranian regime and appeal to the Iranian people’s hearts and minds — and he’s willing to forsake their stomachs to do it.

Appearing on a local Chicago radio show, Kirk said the allegedly Iranian-backed assassination plot exposed by the Obama administration yesterday was the perfect excuse to impose broad-based economic sanctions. So broad-based are Kirk’s sanctions that they’re specifically designed to collapse Iran’s currency, the Rial, by targeting the Islamic Republic’s central bank. Kirk was one of a few Republicans to say in the past two days that the allegedly Iranian-backed assassination plot constituted an act of war.

One of the show’s hosts, Ron Majors, asked Kirk whether, as is often the case with sanctions, going after the Iranian economy with such a broad brush stands to hurt ordinary Iranians. Kirk, who acknowledges later in the interview that the current government was “only able to hold onto power by stealing [the] last election,” then made the stunning admission that he didn’t see anything wrong with literally denying food to ordinary Iranians.

Here’s the exchange:

MAJORS: Once we get into sanctions and taking those kinds of actions, the argument immediately becomes, ‘Are you really going after the government of the country, or are you taking food out of the mouths of the citizens?‘

KIRK: It’s okay to take the food out of the mouths of the citizens from a government that’s plotting an attack directly on American soil.

Listen to the clip here:

There is no delicate line to tip-toe here: One cannot both see the Iranian regime as an oppressor of the Iranian people and simultaneously decree that it is fine to punish the Iranian people for the actions of a government that has no accountability to them. There is a simple phrase to describe this, and it’s collective punishment.

Perhaps Kirk wants something similar to the sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which did not satiate Washington’s war hawks, and caused serious suffering in Iraq. During the initial years of broad-based sanctions after the first Guld War, infant mortality in Iraq rose more than threefold, from one death out of 30 births in 1990, to one in eight in 1997.

With news yesterday of a foiled bomb plot that allegedly ties the Iranian government to an attempt to assassinate foreign diplomats in the U.S., Republicans are now calling for escalated actions against the Iranian regime. Many have focused their talking points on describing the alleged Iranian-backed plot as a declaration of war on the U.S. Here’s a quick rundown:

FORMER REP. PETE HOEKSTRA (R-MI)

Pete Hoekstra told the right-wing magazine Newsmax that the plot allegedly coordinated by Iran constituted “acts of war”:

The plot will “heighten the tensions throughout the Middle East… These are acts of war, and they need to be viewed and treated as such,” said Hoekstra, the former ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Newsmax in an exclusive interview.

REP. PETER KING (R-NY)

House Homeland Security Committee Chairperson King told CNN that he considered the plot an “act of war” and said “the Iranians have crossed a red line”:

KING: This is such — again, this violates all international norms, violates international law. Basically, you’re talking about an act of war. I think we have to — the United States has to really consider taking very significant action. [...]

[W]e should not be, I don’t think, automatically saying we’re not going to have a military action. I think everything should be kept on the table when you’re talking about a potential attack against the United States, an act of war.

SEN. MARK KIRK (R-IL)

Appearing on a Chicago talk radio show, Kirk boosted his recent legislative attempt to collapse the Iranian currency by going after the Iranian central bank. Though Kirk didn’t endorse “military action” by the U.S., he justified a new push to move his legislation forward by saying that the Iranian government has already declared war on the U.S.:

KIRK: I think the declaration of war has already happened by Iran on us. If their intelligence service, called the MOIS, is seeking to blow up American targets, we are already in a state of conflict with them, but for the good work of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department.

RADIO HOST: …You believe this to be true? This is an act of war?…

KIRK: …This is pretty in-your-face by the government of Iran, to be trying to put together bomb plots inside Washington, D.C. And it’ll be now time for the Obama administration to take action.

Watch King and listen to Kirk here:

The plot itself remains merely in indictment form, and, as many commentators have pointed out, we don’t know exactly what was going in this situation, and we do know that a bold move like this would be well out-of-character for Iran’s normally very professional intelligence agencies. Considering the high stakes of possible regional conflagration, perhaps it’s best to save all the “declaration of war” talk until the facts of the case and Iranian complicity are more clear.

Congress, led by über-hawks in each chamber, appears to be pushing aggressive measures against Iran that could have unintended consequences ranging from weakening Iran’s embattled opposition to creating a spike in oil prices that would harm global economic recovery and at the same time enriching the Iranian regime.

A new brief from Washington’s Atlantic Council suggests the U.S. should focus its Iran efforts on human rights sanctions and being “creative and flexible” with offers to the Islamic Republic in order to produce a deal that curbs its alleged drive toward nuclear weapons. Pushing further unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions risks alienating allies that have formed the core of international support, said the brief, authored by Council fellow and journalist Barbara Slavin. That international support, meticulously culled by the Obama administration, led to a U.N. Security Council resolution that — unlike many of the U.S. and Europe’s so-called “secondary” unilateral measures — have shown results.

In her brief, Slavin writes:

Piling on yet more stringent and comprehensive penalties — seeking to embargo Iranian oil exports, for example — risks undermining the significant international cooperation the Obama administration have achieved without giving adequate time for the sanctions already imposed to work. “If you push too far, you risk undoing a lot of what they have been able to accomplish,” [Center for Global Development sanctions specialist Kimberly] Elliott said. “If we go for a complete embargo, you’re going to lose everything.”

Congress, though, has spent the past few weeks — coinciding with the big AIPAC conference in Washington — introducing legislation that, according to advocacy groups, comes dangerously close to imposing a de facto oil embargo. In a letter to Capitol Hill released Thursday by, among other groups, the National Iranian American Council, Project On Middle East Democracy, United4Iran, and Americans for Peace Now, the groups said:

We write to express our serious concerns with recently introduced Iran sanctions legislation – H.R.1905 and S.1048.  We take the challenges posed by Iran very seriously, including its nuclear program, its human rights situation, and its role in the Middle East.  As drafted, H.R. 1905 and S.1048 would pose a significant setback to resolving these issues.

H.R.1905 and S.1048  would effectively impose an oil embargo on Iran that could inflict economic costs on the U.S. and humanitarian costs on the Iranian people.  The bills would also weaken the President’s authority to conduct Iran policy and hinder the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to our issues with Iran.  Furthermore, these measures would undermine, not help, Iran’s human rights and democracy movement.

The House version was introduced by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla), and the Senate version by Sen. Robert Mendez (D-NJ). Both were joined by a bipartisan coterie of Mideast hawks including Sen. Mark Kirk, Congress’s top fundraiser from pro-Israel PACs, who rushed to introduce his part of the bill during AIPAC’s annual Washington conference.

As even one sanctions hawk from a neoconservative think tank has noted, measures that target the Iranian energy sector need to be carefully considered because an all-out embargo could have disastrous effects. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies‘ Mark Dubowitz recently told the Heritage Foundation:

We’re playing very delicately with a very sensitive oil market and we have to be very careful not to shoot ourselves in the face by going after Iranian crude through an embargo or through the Iran crude oil sanctions act which sends a message to the markets that we’re going to take a million barrels of crude off line next week.

In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Dubowitz and his FDD colleague Reuel Marc Gerecht (who supports an Israeli attack on Iran and has lousy pro-democracy credentials there) argued that the U.S. could create an “Iranian-Oil-Free Zone” by making it a “hassle” to trade in or use any Iranian petroleum products. One idea was that:

Any company that exports an oil-based product to America—gasoline, plastics, petrochemicals, synthetic fibers—would have to certify that no Iranian oil was involved in its manufacture.

On Thursday at the Atlantic Council event introducing the brief, Slavin said of the measure, “I’m not sure that all these things are practical.” Later, she told ThinkProgress:

What they want is a stealth embargo. And they want it to be slow and quiet so it doesn’t cause shocks to the market, but that’s what they want.

If it starts to look like a total embargo, they will lose support. It starts to look like Iraq.

In the letter to the Hill, the liberal advocacy groups also mentioned Iraq, where seven years of sanctions and an oil embargo caused so dire an economic situation that the infant mortality rate increased three-fold. Of course, that embargo didn’t work. The hawks who pushed Iraq sanctions still went on to successfully push for an invasion of the country in 2003. Perhaps those lessons are why leading Iranian opposition figures like Mehdi Karroubi oppose broad economic sanctions.