President Obama hit Iran with another sanction yesterday, even as the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities seems to increase. 

"Yesterday, President Obama signed an Executive Order (E.O) that takes a number of actions in furtherance of the Administration's Iran sanctions program," the Treasury Department, which implements the financial sanctions, explained today. "Among other things, the E.O. freezes all property of the Central Bank of Iran and all other Iranian financial institutions, as well as all property of the Government of Iran, further tightening the already broad-based and stringent U.S. sanctions on Iran."

Here is the text of the Executive Order summarizing the sanctions:

The order blocks the property and interests in property of the following: 

Sign Up for the Politics Today newsletter!

Please enter your email address below to begin receiving the Politics Today newsletter.

You must enter a valid email address in the field above!

Thank you for signing up for the Politics Today newsletter! You should receive your first newsletter very soon.

We're sorry, there was an error processing your newsletter signup. Please click here to visit our Newsletter Signup Center to register for this newsletter.

The Government of Iran, including the Central Bank of Iran; 

Any Iranian financial institution, including the Central Bank of Iran; and 

Persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied today that the sanctions were designed, in part, to allay Israel's need to use the military option. "No, I think that it is reflective of the policy that we have taken for a long time now in reaction to the Iranian behavior," he said. "It's not related specifically to that issue [about Israel].