In a direct challenge to a United States law which seeks to prevent third
countries from investing in Iran's oil and gas industry, the French oil
company "Total" has signed a major contract to help exploit the off-shore
South Pars gas field in Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.
Significantly, two other important companies in the global energy
industry, Gazprom of Russia and Petronas of Malaysia, will also
participate in the contract, which is worth $2 billion.
Under Washington's Iran Sanctions Act, sponsored by Senators Alphonse
D'Amato and Edward Kennedy and passed in 1996, any non-U.S. company
investing more than $40 million in Iran's energy sector could be subjected
to a host of punitive measures, including a ban on U.S. bank loans and a
ban on its sales in the U.S. Like the Helms-Burton Act which aims to punish
third countries for investing in Cuba, the D'Amato-Kennedy measure is also
a clear violation of international law because it infringes upon the
sovereign right of countries to determine what kind of economic interaction
they would like to have with each other.
Since Total, Gazprom and Petronas will all be investing more than $40
million each, the Clinton administration is sure to clash with the
governments of France, Russia and Malaysia. Significantly, all three
governments have said they will stand by their companies and have also
emphasized that they do not agree with the U.S.'s policy of bullying Iran.
According to news reports, the French Prime Minister, M. Lionel Jospin,
said: "Nobody accepts that the United States can pass a law on a global
scale. American laws apply in the U.S. They do not apply in France". And
though he said that Total was a private company which made its own
decisions, he added: "Personally, I rejoice in it".
The European Union has not yet openly challenged the Iran Sanctions
Act. Earlier this year, the EU complained to the World Trade Organization
about Helms-Burton but agreed to suspend its complaint after the U.S.
agreed to amend some portions of the anti-Cuba law. The promised changes
which in any case will not alter the illegal nature of the measure have
yet to be made and the European Parliament has instructed the EC to
reinstate the WTO complaint if the U.S. does not keep its side of the
bargain by Oct. 15.
Meanwhile, the Clinton administration has warned Total and the French
government of its intention to apply the anti-Iran law. A State Department
spokesman said the U.S. position was that "such investment makes more
resources available for Iran to use in supporting terrorism and pursuing
missiles and nuclear weapons".
It is clear, however, that the U.S. policy has nothing to do with
opposition to "terrorism", or to "missiles and nuclear weapons". The U.S.
is hostile to Iran because that country refuses to bow to its dictates and
has emerged as an important obstacle to its quest for monopolizing the
energy resources of the Persian Gulf region. In the instant case, the
contract Total signed was first offered to the U.S. oil giant Conoco before
the Clinton administration prohibited U.S. companies from doing business
with Iran.
The French, Russians and others do not wish to see the U.S. dominate
the area. Both France and Russia have publicly spoken out against the
attempts of the U.S. to establish a unipolar world and it is likely that
in the months and years to come, such disputes between the big powers will
only intensify. The end of the bipolar division may have led to increased
collaboration between the imperialist powers in many spheres such as in
pushing for the opening of markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America for
their capital and goods, but the Iran case highlights the fact that
rivalry between them is very much a fact of life.
TML DAILY, 10/97
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
