BEYOND THE DROPZONE

GOODYEAR DOING BUSINESS IN IRAN

Posted by W. Thomas Smith Jr. on 12 June 2008 at 3:35 pm UTC

It’s one thing to be doing business with a state sponsor of terrorism like Iran: selling tires (dual-purpose products which have a crystal-clear military application) to a country which is technically off-limits to trade, which also is the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism (fields the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, and funds Hamas and the Taliban), which has a deplorable human rights record, which has an active nuclear-development program, which has an active ballistic-missile development program, which consistently defies international law, and which frequently threatens to wipe countries off the face of the earth.

It’s quite something else to both do business with such a country and then arrogantly boast about it through one of your distributors.

Take a look at Goodyear distributor Nikran Tire Company’s webpage:

Nikran Tire Company is the sole importer and distributor of Goodyear Tires in Iran. With our wide range of quality products, we guarantee to provide you with the best tires in the world.

Our Mission
We are determined in providing our costumers with quality products at competitive prices. Our goal is to become the leading provider of foreign tires in Iran.

Our History
Since 1989 we have supplied Goodyear tires to different sectors of the Iranian tire market, be it off the road, Passenger, Truck, Bus or Farm.

We have been key tire suppliers to companies such as but not limited to: Iran Khodro, Zagros Khodro and Raniran. Our non-passenger costumers include the Chador-Maloo Mining Corporation, Tehran Cement Company and the Central Iron Ore Co.

This is almost beyond belief.

How does Goodyear get away with it? The same way GE does (which we’ve written about here and here): These companies have the money and a stable full of attorneys who are able to worm them into those countries — despite sanctions — with “all sorts of legally protected things that non-lawyer types would have a near-impossible time of getting their heads around like various trade loopholes, “exceptions” for who-knows-what, and “cutouts” (foreign-based subsidiaries).”

As Christopher Holton, a vice president with the Center for Security Policy and who directs the CSP’s Divest Terror Initiative, tells me, what these companies are doing “may not be violating the letter of the law, but it’s certainly violating the spirit of the law.”

— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

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