U.S. sanctions companies over Iran dealings

August 4th, 2006 at 21:45 Björn Hallberg

The United States is grasping for straws, points a finger at non-U.S. entities who aren’t following bellicose, populistic U.S. laws. The nerve some people have.

The sanctions, which took effect on July 28 and were listed Friday in the Federal Register, fall under the Iran-Syria Non-Proliferation Act, which prohibits transfer of sensitive technology to Tehran or Damascus that could be used for weapons of mass destruction programs.

Officials said two Russian companies, two North Korean companies, two Indian companies and one Cuban company were sanctioned because there was “credible information” they had transferred to Iran equipment and/or technology on export control lists.

It’s the usual suspects of course and America’s desire to libel its enemies is as thinly veiled as ever. The only exception of course is India, which is now on the buddy list and interestingly, the U.S. withheld sanctions while securing the recent nuclear deal. Perhaps these Indian firms have ties to parties that are critical of India collaborating with the U.S. Who knows, and it’s really besides the point since it is so obvious this flabbergasting play is just another crock.

Telling: The U.S. of course refuses to specify what said companies did to violate this nickelodeon law of theirs. Providing some sort of manifest would of course reveal that most if not all of these charges are simply made-up for political reasons. So they may not lose any revenue over already non-existent sales to the U.S. BUT the blacklisting may help the U.S. convince less apt or easily bullied trading partners to rethink their military spending in favour of American products. As is obviously the case with Sukhoi, which stands poised to endanger much need exports. Exports that are vital for the U.S. being able to afford to renew its own air fleet in the long run. Sukhoi probably also didn’t get any Brownie points for securing a deal with Venezuela.

It’s also peculiar that Halliburton, Conoco-Phillips and General Electric were able to do far more extensive dealings with Iran in areas that perhaps may not have been so overtly linked to armaments, as say Sukhoi, but that provided far broader and more long-term advantages for the country. If indeed the idea is to hamper Iran, this would seem inconsistent. But again, this is partly about making the world safe for American transnationals.

Meanwhile, Russia moves to strengthen its support for Syria. Though in the end it will most likely be about as helpful as the France was to Argentina during the Falklands War in terms of reliable resupply efforts. Selling fancy weaponry is one thing, resupplying them during wartime is quite another. Only the U.S. would do anything that damning.

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