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To Pressure Iran, Squeeze Russia and China

(Wall Street Journal) - Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz The State Department's sanctions czar, Robert Einhorn, likes to tout that the threat of sanctions has led to about $60 billion in energy projects being terminated in Iran. This figure mostly reflects the decision of European firms to back off. However, Russia and China have made it clear that the Iranian energy sector is still open for their business. In 2009, the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) replaced France's Total in a contract to develop a major part of Iran's South Pars gas field. Chinaoil, the trading arm of CNPC, began delivering gasoline to Iran in 2010. Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec - the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation - also resumed gasoline sales to Iran in the spring of 2010 after a nearly six-year hiatus. Russian energy giant Gazprom continues to explore whether to expand Iran's oil and gas pipelines. The U.S. government has the capacity to make both Russia and China feel considerable pain. CNPC has a U.S. subsidiary, PetroChina. The Obama administration or Congress could consider banning CNPC from holding any U.S. assets. As for Russia, Lukoil sells gasoline in over 2,000 facilities in 13 U.S. states. Those facilities could be a target of sanctions. Gazprom Marketing and Trade, the U.S. subsidiary of Gazprom, should be barred from further natural gas business in the U.S. All of the offending Russian and Chinese companies could be banned from receiving U.S. government contracts and forcibly divested from state pension funds. Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is executive director of the foundation.
2010-09-17 09:11:32
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