US congress ready to sanction Iran over missile test.

US senators are set to initiate a legislation that will impose sanctions on Iran for its recent test of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

Republican senators who are championing the move insist that by testing the ballistic missiles, Iran was acting to “destabilise” the Middle East, a US senator said Sunday.

“I think it is now time for the Congress to take Iran on directly in terms of what they’ve done outside the nuclear program,” said Lindsey Graham, a member of the senate armed services committee, told the Munich security conference.

Graham said he and other Republicans would introduce measures to hold Iran accountable for its actions.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since an Iranian ballistic missile test which prompted US President Donald Trump’s administration to impose sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the country’s Revolutionary Guards.

“Iran is a bad actor in the greatest sense of the word when it comes to the region. To Iran, I say, if you want us to treat you differently then stop building missiles, test-firing them in defiance of U.N. resolution and writing ‘Death to Israel’ on the missile. That’s a mixed message,” Graham said.

Senator Christopher Murphy, a member of the senate foreign relations committee, told the same panel there was nothing preventing congress from imposing sanctions beyond those that were lifted as a result of the 2016 nuclear agreement with Iran.

Murphy, a Democrat, told the panel that he had backed the nuclear deal in the explicit understanding that it would not prevent congress from taking actions against Iran outside the nuclear issue.

“There’s going to be a conversation about what the proportional response is. But I don’t necessarily think there’s going to be partisan division over whether or not we have the ability as a Congress to speak on issues outside of the nuclear agreement,” he said.

Murphy said the United States needed to decide whether it wanted to take a broader role in the regional conflict.

North Korea Missile Test Fails

North Korea has test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine but it failed in its initial flight stage, South Korea’s military said.

It said the missile was launched in waters east of the Korean peninsula – the latest in a recent series of tests.

It comes less than three months after a previous attempt to launch a missile from a submarine failed, the BBC reports.

North Korea, believed to be developing nuclear weapons, is banned by the United Nations from any use of ballistic missiles.

“The SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) was ejected from the submarine normally, but is estimated the initial flight was unsuccessful,” the BBC quoted the South Korean military as saying in a statement.

“Our military strongly denounces such provocative acts by North Korea,” it added.

The missile had been launched at about 11:30 local time (02:30 GMT) off North Korea’s port of Sinpo.

The United States and South Korea on Friday agreed to deploy a missile defence system to counter threats from Pyongyang.

It remains unclear exactly where the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system will be sited and who will have final control.

Credit: Nation