WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s new policy of sanctioning Iranian banks is facing a critical challenge as financial institutions in Russia, China, and much of the Middle East have declined to cut ties with the banks, analysts and diplomats say.
Even Afghanistan and Iraq — two countries that depend heavily on the United States — have so far declined to take action against Bank Melli, Iran’s largest public financial institution, which was among the first foreign banks to open branches in Baghdad and Kabul.
‘‘Nothing is happening,’’ said Sinan Shabibi, the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, in a recent telephone interview.
The world reaction to the US sanctions on Bank Melli, which operates as Iran’s central bank overseas, will determine whether President Bush’s new tool against Iran is a failure or a success, analysts say.
US officials insist that they have already seen progress. Since they blacklisted Bank Melli, Bank Mellat, and Bank Saderat in October, banks in Japan, India, and Europe have quietly followed suit.
‘‘We’ve seen significant movement,’’ said Adam J. Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department. ‘‘We are certainly not disappointed.’’
But US officials want the UN Security Council to add Bank Melli to a list of sanctioned Iranian entities, forcing countries around the world to stop doing business with it and starving Iran of access to foreign capital.
Russia and China, two Security Council members that can block the move, have called the US bank sanctions arbitrary and unhelpful.
‘‘I don’t think that sanctions against a bank is something that we have to concentrate on,’’ said a Kremlin official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
The bank sanctions have become more controversial since a new National Intelligence Estimate last week concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Even before the report became public, the bank sanctions
stoked resentment among countries who believed that President Bush was overstepping his authority.
The sanctions against Bank Melli stem from an executive order that Bush issued in 2005 giving him unprecedented power to blacklist foreign banks. While previous presidents have blacklisted foreign companies for weapons proliferation, Bush’s order allows the Treasury Department to punish the banks in which suspected proliferators hold accounts and make transactions.
The US government can then shut that bank out of the US financial system without ever having to make its evidence public, or even share the allegations with the banks themselves. Foreign banks have little recourse to fight such sanctions, save writing a letter of protest to the Treasury Department.
‘‘A judge never gets to look at this,’’ said Paul Downs, a New York-based lawyer for a law firm that represented a Macau bank hit by similar US sanctions.
Once the US blacklists a bank, many financial institutions around the world voluntarily curb their ties with it, fearing that the United States will blacklist them as well.
‘‘They are effectively forced to go along,’’ said SuzanneMaloney, a former State Department specialist on Iran now at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
At first, Treasury officials used the power Bush gave them sparingly, fearing that moving against mainstream foreign banks would anger their allies.
Their first target was Tanchon Commercial Bank, a tiny North Korean institution with few ties to the outside world. The bank was believed to have aided the purchase of most of that country’s ballistic missiles.
Yet, over time, US officials grew bolder. In January, they announced sanctions against Bank Sepah, Iran’s fifth largest bank, accusing it of ‘‘direct and extensive financial services to Iranian entities responsible for developing missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction.’’ The allegations against Bank Sepah included facilitating a business venture between a North Korean missiles provider and an Iranian company.
In October, Treasury officials made their most aggressive move yet: They blacklisted three more Iranian banks, including Bank Melli, an institution that conducts an estimated 30 percent of all financial transactions in Iran and serves as the country’s central bank overseas.
US officials said Bank Melli was being blacklisted because it had ‘‘provided a range of financial services on behalf of Iran’s nuclear and missile industries, including opening letters of credit and maintaining accounts.’’ Bank Melli was also accused of handling transactions for Bank Sepah.
Treasury officials said last week that they will continue their efforts to isolate Bank Melli despite the NIE conclusion that Iran’s nuclear program had been halted. They noted that the president’s order also covers Iran’s long-range missile program, which is still active.
After the United States blacklisted Bank Melli, Russian President Vladmir Putin portrayed the action as senseless and dangerous, like ‘‘running around like a mad man with a blade in one’s hand.’’ Bao-dong Wang, press counselor for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said China does not support the ‘‘arbitrary imposition of sanctions.’’
Even foreign diplomats who support the banking sanctions acknowledge that they are designed to pressure Iran to halt its uranium enrichment research, not to block secret weapons purchases.
‘‘It’s not that you think hitting Bank Melli will reduce the financing of proliferation,’’ said a Washington-based European diplomat who supports the sanctions. ‘‘It’s part of the shaming game.’’
The bank itself, an 80-year-old, state-run institution with 3,500 branches and affiliates worldwide, says it engages only in widely accepted financial services for lawful clients.
‘‘By failing to provide any evidence, the US Treasury has unjustly denied [Bank Melli] the basic and natural right to defend itself against serious allegations of this nature and strongly supports our contention that no such evidence in fact exists,’’ the bank said in a statement on its website.
The banking sanctions have raised the cost of doing business in Iran. Some Iranian businessmen are forced to pay their suppliers directly with suitcases of cash or to travel to another country to conduct banking transactions. Meanwhile, banks in China, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates have sought higher payments from Bank Melli for their services, analyst say. But business in Iran, a country raking in cash from high oil prices, continues unabated, they say.
‘‘If United States is targeting our financial system, it means they are very clever, because the financial system is the most sensitive place,’’ said Saeed Laylaz, a Tehran-based analyst who has worked in the import-export industry. ‘‘But maybe it is too late to impose any sanction. Without Russia and China, it is impossible.’’
According to the State Department’s own estimates, Iran imported nearly $50 billion in goods this year, a 10 percent increase over last year — a sign that the economic siege is failing. But that could change. British officials say they have launched the lengthy process required to blacklist Bank Melli in Britain.
The European Union is also considering action, and others could follow suit.
