Posted on 01/09/2007 3:41:52 PM PST by parousia
US Bans, Freezes assets of Fifth-largest Iranian Bank
"Financial institutions and other companies have begun to re-evaluate their business relationships with Iran. Many leading financial institutions have either scaled back dramatically or terminated entirely their Iran-related business," said Stuart Levey, the treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, at a press conference Tuesday.
"They have done so of their own accord, many concluding that they did not wish to be the banker for a regime that funds terrorism, defies the UN security council in pursuing a nuclear program and deliberately conceals the nature of its business."
He also pointed to activities such as the sponsoring of a conference questioning the Holocaust, saying, "These things all start to add together and are leading to increasing isolation of Iran from the legitimate business community that it needs for its future."
Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the treasury action against Bank Sepah opens a new arena of concern for banks, which will now have to avoid complicity in WMD proliferation, not just terrorism.
The latter policy, pursued by the Bush administration in earnest over the last two years with the appointment of Levey, "has been quite successful in saying to banks, do you really want to get involved in this," noted Clawson, implying the answer from banks was overwhelmingly no. "The banks don't want to acquire reputations for being 'criminal banks.'"
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Now would probably be a good time for Israel to casually mention that unless Iran end its nuke program immediately, Israel's main target will be the oil terminals rather then the nuke facilities.
That should send the Mullahs into a tizz.
Or gasoline refineries, but I like where you're going with that. No gas, no oil, no money to fix it. Government ought to last about 2 days under those conditions.
Would you call this gambit Texas Hold'em....???
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