U.S. Adds to Its List of Sanctions Against Iran The Obama administration escalated sanctions pressure against Iran on Monday for the third time in a week, taking actions that could further weaken the country's already-devalued currency and seriously disrupt its automotive industry, a significant domestic employer and revenue generator for the Iranian government. The latest actions, contained in an executive order effective July 1, were a response to what a White House statement called Iran's "continued failure to meet its international obligations," a reference to its disputed nuclear energy program, which Iran has called peaceful and Western nations call a guise to achieve the ability to make atomic bombs. Talks aimed at resolving that protracted dispute have stalled in advance of Iran's presidential elections in less than two weeks, and the leading candidate, Saeed Jalili, is Iran's top nuclear negotiator. He has said that the country will never compromise on the nuclear issue and that the sanctions will have no effect. Under the executive order, President Obama authorized sanctions on any foreign financial institutions that conduct "significant transactions" in the Iranian rial, the national currency, or maintains rial accounts outside Iran. While the United States and European Union have taken other steps that severely limit Iran's ability to conduct financial transactions, the administration's action is the first time that the rial itself has been directly targeted for sanctions. "As of July 1, significant transactions in the rial will expose anyone to sanctions," said an administration official briefing reporters in a telephone conference call. It should cause banks and exchanges to dump their rial holdings. The rial already has lost half its value from a year ago in part because of the cumulative effects of other economic sanctions, which have made it far costlier for Iran to import goods. Inflation has accelerated in Iran, and many people are worried that the rial could weaken further. The objective of the new sanction, the administration official said, is to "make the rial essentially unusable outside of Iran." The executive order also authorized sanctions against any companies or individuals who do business with Iran's automotive industry, essentially adding that industry to Iran's shipping, shipbuilding and energy sectors, which have already been targeted under a sanctions law that took effect last year. The sanctions generally freeze American assets of targeted Iranian businesses or individuals and prohibit them from commerce with any American companies or citizens. Foreign companies that help Iran evade the sanctions can also face severe reprisals, including a ban on doing business in the United States. Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington group that supports tough sanctions, said the automotive sanctions could have serious consequences for Iran, where the automotive industry is one of the biggest employers. Sanctions advocates in the United States also contend Iran's automotive industry is a major procurement network that imports material and technologies used to build uranium centrifuges instead of cars. Last week, the United States blacklisted companies in Iran's petrochemical industry for the first time and issued sanctions against more than 50 Iranian officials for what the administration called their efforts to stifle political dissent in Iran. Critics of the sanctions policy say it has done nothing to weaken the Iranian government's resolve and may be having the opposite effect. Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based group that opposes the sanctions, pointed to Iran's intransigence on the nuclear issue, its more aggressive stance in military aid to the Syrian government and a State Department report last week that asserted Iran's support for terrorism is at its highest in 20 years. Despite the sanctions, Mr. Parsi said, "Iran has moved in the wrong direction on every front."