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Western Businesses Line Up for Post-Sanctions Business with Tehran
(Wall Street Journal) Editorial - A growing number of European governments and businesses are moving to cash in on the opening created by the interim agreement with Iran. In the two months since the accord was struck in Geneva, Tehran's trading partners have lifted sanctions, sent delegations, agreed to export deals and signaled their readiness to expand ties across nearly every major industry. All of these people are anticipating a new Iranian gold rush. A World Bank study released last week projects that the Iranian economy will grow by 1% in 2014, after two consecutive years of contraction. The rial is climbing against the dollar, the Tehran stock exchange is up, and inflation is down. Now that it's underway, the momentum to dismantle sanctions has its own political logic that will add to the pressure on Western leaders to sign a final accord, even a bad one. And if there is no deal because Western nations divide over the terms, then the sanctions are likely to break down anyway.