On Tuesday, the House of Representatives sent a defiant message to President Obama in a near-unanimous vote for sanctions on Iran and Syria: the Obama Doctrine of appeasement is dead. Congress, it seems, is interpreting Donald Trump’s unexpected victory as a referendum on the current president. On the heels of the GOP’s massive electoral triumph, the House passed a 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act by a staggering vote of 419-1. Yes, only one person voted against the measure. According to The Washington Post, “The ISA forms the basis for energy, banking and defense sanctions against Iran’s nuclear and missile activities, and was set to expire at the end of the year.”
Emboldened by the unraveling of President Obama’s loosely-knit popular mandate, Congress also exercised its power to address the suffering of Syria’s people. After five years of deafening silence by the Obama administration, the House finally passed a measure placing new sanctions on anyone, no matter how powerful, who provides any sort of support to Bashar al-Assad’s genocidal regime. The explicitly stated purpose of the measure is to “halt the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people.” Notably, the Iranians and Russians, Assad’s most prominent allies, are included in the category of possible governments that may be subject to sanctions.
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