After Siemens Departure, German Firms Remain Heavily Involved in Iran
“In Response to Iran’s Nuclear Program, German Firms Are Slowly Pulling Out” reads the headline in the February 2 edition of the New York Times. Out of Iran, one supposes. The basis for this vast generalization is the decision of a single German firm, the engineering giant Siemens, to forgo any new contracts with Iranian partners.
Siemens, moreover, is a very special case. The firm had been specifically targeted for action by the advocacy group “Stop the Bomb” — i.e., the Iranian bomb — and it was put severely on the defensive when reports were published in the very midst of last year’s post-election Iranian protests linking technology supplied by a Siemens-Nokia joint venture and Iranian regime surveillance of electronic communications. (See here, for instance, from the Wall Street Journal. A similar report had already been published in the Jerusalem Post in April, before the Iranian elections, but did not have the same impact.)
Although the accuracy of the story was challenged by both the company itself and technology experts (in the latter category, see here and here), the damage was done. The sensational reports not only sparked popular calls to boycott Siemens products, but even threats of a U.S. government boycott. Small wonder, then, that Siemens would see fit to create some separation from a market that in the grand scheme of things is of little significance for its nearly €80 billion per year turnover.
But, as the Hamburg-based political scientist Matthias Küntzel has put it in a German-language analysis recently distributed by “Stop the Bomb,” “a single sparrow does not yet make for spring.” The analysis refers to a brochure that was published in 2009 by the Tehran-based German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and that bears the title “Branch Offices, Representations and Agencies of German Companies in Iran.”
On Küntzel’s count, the brochure identifies no less than two hundred German companies doing business in Iran. Of these, some forty-five have permanent branch or representative offices in the country. The latter include such well-known German industrial heavyweights as BASF, Bayer, Bosch, Daimler, Lufthansa, Henkel, Siemens, and ThyssenKrupp. Several of these firms, as well as numerous smaller, lesser-known German engineering firms, specialize in activities that could readily be of relevance for the Iranian nuclear program. Küntzel has compiled a list of nearly eighty firms whose products, he suggests, could potentially have “military applications.”
While officially recorded German exports to Iran have fallen off from a high of nearly €4.5 billion in 2005, they rose by nearly 9% to just under €4 billion in 2008. Last year, they declined again by some 8%. But, as Küntzel points out, in light of the global financial crisis, this was a relatively good result. Overall, German exports fell by over 18% in 2009.
Moreover, it has long been an open secret that some German suppliers avoid unwelcome notice — and the official statistics — by shipping to Iran via the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The New York Times appears only now to be catching on. Thus the Times report cites an unnamed German business executive who knowingly observes that “Dubai is Iran’s biggest trading partner, yet Dubai produces nothing.” Dubai is one of the emirates composing the UAE. After “confessing” that German companies do business with Iran via Dubai, the anonymous source then cattily and irrelevantly adds that “the Americans” do the same — and even “the Israelis” something similar!
Let us call an ace an ace, and a spade a spade.
While there are various factions within Germany who are keen to separate from their murderous Nazi ancestors, thus eschewing any business with the Iranian Hitlerite regime, there are MANY German businesses and others who are fine with assisting Iran in its goal.The point being, purging the world of the Jewish State is a goal they share in common, therefore, being exposed to scrutiny or sanctions for doing business with Iran is a very small price to pay.
At the end of the day Israel’s leaders know the score. It will be up to them to take matters into their own hands, regardless of who approves or not. After all, more of them want Israel to disappear, so listening to them is NOT an option!
This is a surprise? To who? American firms also do business with Iran, as do Chinese, French and Russian. I would not be surprised to find out that ALL European nations do business with Iran.
After all, it’s NOT illegal. UN Sanctions apply only to certain items. That won’t change without the USA getting tough with China. If the USA gets tough with China, China will stop buying US Bonds.
Sanctions are a joke. Even if the USA got China to go along, they would still be a joke.
Any attempt to enforce sanctions would cause a war, which is what the sanctions are supposed to prevent. Sanctions are a theory, one that has been proven bogus. If sanctions worked, why is Cuba ( under sanction since 1960) and N. Korea ( under sanction since 1951) still going?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba
http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/NKsanctions.pdf
Sanctions only work against Democracies. Since Democratic states have a passion for negotiation, there is never any need for sanctions.
Despots and Tyrants are not bothered by sanctions.
Regime change is the only sure fire method of dealing with them. Either by targeted assassination or invasion and war. Nothing else works.
So the politicians have to bite the bullet and order the kill or send in the troops. Most pols don’t have the sand for that, so they put sanctions on in an effort to look like they are doing something.
Don’t be fooled.
Huh.
It’s like déjà vu.
All over again.
“The greater part of shipments [to Iran] from the UAE are re-exports from third countries: among others, from Germany and China.”
I thought it ironic that Germany & other western countries were doing business with Saddam’s Iraq right up to the 2003 invasion.
More ironic that China is currently so completely enmeshed in Iran, oilwise and tradewise, that some continuing notion of getting Chinese co-operation on “sanctions” at the UN seems absurd. Russia, the same. Russia has actually built some of the nuclear facilities in Iran that it is now asked to turn around and condemn.
Arms traders/manufacturers of all kinds sell to the highest bidder and route, probably routinely, through other willing countries. Some arms shipment that originated in North Korea was interdicted coming up through Africa, eventual likely destination, Gaza.
The whole international situation is so muddled up and riddled with self-interest that achieving a consensus as to clear cut enemies in the world anymore is impossible.
I’ve often wondered how the idiots of the planet, terrorists/brain dead mullahs etc., continue to be supplied and the complicated network of international trade that enables that. Despite letting its country go to hell in a handbasket internally, Iran has been awash in oil money. It would seem the only rule of thumb in international relations any more is follow the money.
In thumbing his nose at the “international community”, Ahmadinejhad seems smug that he has some very reliable and enduring trading partners
When the Anglo-Saxons conquered the world, the Germans traded with the rest left. That is why we enjoyed good relations with Iran but also with Afghanistan. Who destroyed those countries? Not Germany! The US does not shy away from dictators as long those ‘rulers’ support the US. The next problems will be Egypt and Saudi-Arabia. I admit that Iran has a nasty government at present. However, the people of Iran do not hate Americans or Israelis – they all fear the military power of these countries(they all could see what happened to Iraq). Mathias Küntzel publishes more often in the US than in Germany. After all, his articles are very, very anti-German and therefore balsam for the American soul(do you have something like that)? I know you will not publish these lines – they are not anti-German and pro-American.
The problem is that after 40 years of very high prices of oil, we don’t know whose money controls which companies.
The West has been compelled to transfer to muslim countries superzillions of dollars, and that money comes back to buy Western corporations, politicians, universities, media, political parties, presidents.
so, who is seriously surprised?
the USA is of little concern to the outside world. We have brought this on ourselves.
Canada gets most of our oil money, then Mexico, then the middle east starts in.
we could be drilling and providing thousands of jobs and keeping the money home….but, we can’t we might hurt a freakin fish, although I don’t believe this is the root of the problem either.
The things in ME,EU,AS are no surprise, frightening though..
Iran is going to have nukes. While a problem, it isn’t the real serious problem.
The serious problem will be when KSA, Egypt, Turkey, SYRIA, and every other piss-ant nation gets nukes to keep up with Iran.
That will start a trend. Don’t be surprised if within a decade of Iran building nukes at least 150 other nations have them also. That will make using them inevitable.
MAD only works if you know who did the dirty deed. With dozens of nuclear armed nations, there will be no way to tell who sent the fishing boat with a nuke under all those Cod into harbor.
Then the survivors will regret not stopping Iran.
Like Pandora found out, it’s bitch getting things back in the box.
German companies also trade with Israel to the tune of 6 billion USD a year. It’s probably some of the same companies. The reality is that they are in the business of making money and not politics.
It would be desirable if companies all over the world didn’t do business with repressive regimes but that’s not really how it goes, is it? Western companies are all over Red China, a Chinese guard can torture a dissident and after his shift pop into KFC for a bucket. Does that prove KFC endorses China’s policy towards dissidents? Hardly.
I think it’s wrong to trade with Iran myself but it’s hardly fair to say that German companies or Germany itself want to assist Iran in its political objectives just because they see it as a source of trade revenue.
Goy, and of course the fairness was to blame only France for the whole 95% lot that concerned other countries
@10. Marie Claude: – …and of course the fairness was to blame only France…
Really? Whose “fairness” (?) was that, exactly?
French political structure corrupted by the Oil-For-Food scam and other considerations prevented France from doing the right thing when it counted at the U.N. in 2002.
So no, France didn’t get 95% of the ‘blame’. France got 100% of the scorn – richly deserved.
American companies are heavily involved in Iran as well. You can buy Coca-Cola and Pepsi products everywhere.