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After Congress overwhelmingly passed sweeping new economic sanctions against Iran, questions remain over whether those sanctions will curb Iran's nuclear program and whether they will even be implemented in the first place.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010 (H.R. 2194) passed 99-0 in the Senate and 408-8 in the House of Representatives on June 24 and awaits signature into law by President Obama. In addition to the six existing sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 -- which targeted investment only -- the legislation establishes three new sanctions: prohibitions on access to foreign exchange in the U.S., access to the U.S. banking system, and property transactions in the U.S.

Violators are also excluded from eligibility for U.S. government contracts; such businesses now must certify that they do not do business with Iran. Existing sanctions targeting investment in Iran's energy sector were extended to encompass trade with the energy escort and business with the banking sector.

Additionally, the bill includes increases in penalties for sanctions violators -- in fines from $10,000 to $1,000,000 and in jail time from 10 to 20 years -- as well as visa, property, and financial sanctions on Iranians the president determines to be complicit in serious human rights abuses against other Iranians on or after June 12, 2009, the date of Iran's last presidential election.

One new provision sets a 45-day timetable for the president to determine sanctions violators and report them to Congress. However, Congress granted the president the ability to waive sanctions on a company for 12 months as long as he certifies to Congress that the company's country is cooperating with U.S.-led multilateral efforts to isolate Iran.

If the public's expectation is that sanctions will force Iran to give up nuclear weapons, that expectation is unreasonable, Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal, told The Jewish State. While "people think the purpose of sanctions is only to force somebody to change their behavior," Rubin said, the real aim is to reduce the assets the Iranian government has to build its nuclear program.

"Anything that reduces their assets weakens them militarily," Rubin said.

The recently passed sanctions can also be effective in three other ways, Rubin said: by convincing countries not to deal with Iran or be their ally because there are significant costs to that, determining if Arab states are more afraid of Iran or confident in the U.S., and creating what Rubin called "internal conflict." Iranians historically have a tendency to overstate the foreign threat, Rubin said, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tries to portray America as a harmless "paper tiger." Without measures like sanctions, America emboldens Ahmadinejad and silences his critics, Rubin said.

However, Rubin said the fact that these sanctions contain the 12-month waiver for the president raises the question of "Will these ever be implemented?" The legislation is crafted in a way that if companies in countries like Russia, China, Brazil, and Turkey violate the sanctions -- yet cooperate with U.S.-led multilateral efforts to isolate Iran -- it isn't in the interest of the U.S. to even investigate the violations, he said.

Shoshana Bryen, senior director for security policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), told The Jewish State that these sanctions will not work "because people who are sanctioned are the top level of the people in Iran, they know how to get around sanctions better than anyone else," through tactics like putting their money elsewhere.

But U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (N.J.-12), who represents parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Somerset counties, said the fact that the sanctions target Iran's leadership is important because sanctions "rarely change the behavior of intransigent regimes, but they often harm innocent citizens."

"I am pleased that this legislation was crafted carefully to target the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and the leadership of Iran, rather than the Iranian people," Holt said in a statement.

The strategy of trying to prevent Iran from importing gasoline is also futile, Bryen said, because over the last couple of years China has been building refining capacities in Iran, which now imports only 40 percent of its gas instead of 80 percent as it had in the past.

"We didn't do any of this in a timely way," Bryen said of sanctions. "[The Iranians are] not sitting around waiting for us to decide what to do, they're taking active measures to protect their own interests," she said.

Rubin also acknowledged that, "This all could have been done a year ago."

U.S. Rep. John Adler (N.J.-3), who represents parts of Ocean County, told The Jewish State that the sanctions put real pressure on Iran because they extend to the banking sector and affect more petroleum companies than previous legislation had.

"I'm hoping that pressure will divert Iran from its reckless pursuit of nuclear capability," Adler said.

"We are trying to reach out to squeeze Iran's economy in ways that will alter the regime's conduct," he said.

When it comes to Iran, Adler said, "we have to be aware that we are dealing with a regime that's intolerant, has no regard for even fellow Muslims that don't follow the Shia approach," let alone Christians and Jews.

Holt emphasized the importance of the legislation's new element of visa, property, and financial sanctions against Iranian human rights abusers.

"The United States continues to stand with those in Iran who oppose human rights abuses and fight for a government that is truly representative of the peoples' will," he said.

Holt said it is also important that the legislation "makes clear that the United States stands ready to lift the new sanctions and engage Iran in a productive dialogue if the regime stops threatening its neighbors and verifiably abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction." "Until that day comes, the United States will continue to take action to convince the Iranian leadership that this is the only viable choice," Holt said. "Achieving that goal is the central purpose of this legislation."

U.S. Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Ron Klein (D-Fla.) sought the inclusion of the 45-day timetable for the president to enforce the sanctions. Enforcement was a critical problem with the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) of 1996, Kirk said.

"Although the ISA was intended to deter investment in Iran's energy sector, no entity has ever been held accountable under the Act," Kirk said in a statement.

The divestment portion of the bill provides a safe harbor for changes of investment policies by private asset managers, expressing that certain divestments, or avoidance of investment, do not constitute a breach of fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The legislation also supports state and local efforts to divest from companies conducting business operations in Iran by stating that those efforts are not pre-empted by any federal law or regulation as long as they follow procedures such as properly notifying affected firms.

U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the new legislation "tells Iran and its trading partners that the United States means business about stopping Iran's illicit nuclear activities."

"It greatly strengthens our nation's overall sanctions regime regarding Iran, increasing the prospects that Iran will finally bear serious costs for its blatant defiance of the international community," Berman said in a statement.