U.S. Plan for Iran’s Containment

U.S. Plan for Iran’s Containment
Ardeshir Ommani, April 4, 2007

A greater share of the U.S-U.K. aggregate effort against the nation of Iran is heavily focused on a relatively more conspicuous course of action such as the enforcement of the U.N. sanctions, which aim at strangulating the Iranian economy and consequently intensifying social tensions and antagonisms that would ultimately lead into undermining the fabric of the social system and the Iranian society altogether.

To carry out a long-term plan of comprehensive containment, just as it did during the cold-war era against the Soviet Union, the West, headed by the U.S., has to prevent the economic centers of the world, particularly the European Union, from having capital investment, financial and commercial dealings with Iran.

At the center of the containment lies blocking foreign capital investment, particularly in Iranian oil and gas sectors, forcing foreign banks not to issue commercial and government-backed credit guarantees, denying export licenses to companies that have dealings with those around the world who have capital investment in Iran’s oil and gas industries, preventing Iranian import-export banks from having financial transactions with foreign banks and lastly carrying out physical inspections of ships entering or leaving Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. goal is to be able to impose penalties on the foreign companies that have investments in Iran’s oil and natural gas sectors. Without a doubt this is a brazen case of extra-territoriality, by which one nation imposes its domestic laws on foreign companies and sovereign nations. The U.S. government with the help of the democratic majority in the Congress is tempted to invoke a statute enacted in 1996 that permits the U.S. government to punish any foreign energy company doing business with Iran. To pull this off, the U.S. government has to go against such energy companies as Shell, Repsol, and SKS, the Malaysian oil company, as well as the governments of China, India, Pakistan and Malaysia.

There are several big gas and oil projects on the planning board that include a $10 billion investment by Royal Dutch Shell and the Spanish oil company Repsol YFP to develop Iran’s South Pars field, one of the world’s biggest natural gas deposits, and a $20 billion investment by SKS Ventures of Malaysia to produce natural gas in Iran’s Golshan and Ferdows fields. Should these projects come to fruition in the next several years, Iran will be able to expand its productive and export capacities by many folds and far into the future. But the U.S. and the U.K., not seeing themselves in the driver’s seat, plan to spoil both developments, in the nuclear and hyrdo-carbon energy sectors.

But could the U.S., being in such hot waters as Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela and many other places, afford to provoke a possible fight with Europe and Asia? There is a very low probability for such an adventure. What is obvious is that Washington has been careful not to advocate any kind of boycott that might send a barrel of oil to $100, and sink the frail U.S. economy into deep recession.

So far the U.S. has been able to use an earlier United Nations Security Council resolution to pressure some European banks from having dealings with 10 Iranian companies and a dozen individuals in high places. What the U.S. wishes to do is to dictate to all of the world’s banks and businesses to boycott all of the Iranian financial and economic entities. Iran has commercial dealings with more than 70 countries in 6 continents that contain thousands of corporations. Therefore, the U.S. plans remain simply wishful thinking.
But no sanctions are complete without halting and inspecting the ships and aircrafts in their way to and from the targeted country. Being overwhelmed by the formidable challenges of the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States had assigned the task of violating the territorial waters, and inspecting the ships approaching Iran or departing its ports to its junior partner, Britain.

Both, the U.S. with the presences of its threatening aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, the biggest concentration of weaponry in the region since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the U.K., had decided to test the will power of the government of Iran. In turn Tehran was also aware of the historical challenge to its honor and legitimacy. It deliberately took the bull by the horns and broke the myth of the invincibility of the big powers under the cover of the United Nations mandate. The fact is that this is not the first time that Britain waves a mandate issued by an international organization as a ticket of policing Iraq and its territorial waters. Once before, in 1920 the League of Nations not only gave Britain a mandate over entire Iraq, but also made sure that Britain would hold the mandate over that country for another 25 years. Such has been the nature of the international organizations set up by the imperialist powers to be used as a tool of oppression against the third world countries. This time it didn’t work.