Targeting Hamas, eyeing Iran, embarrassing Dubai

Targeting Hamas, eyeing Iran, embarrassing Dubai

The following excerpts from a January Bloomberg report about 'Dubai helping Iran evade sanctions' is an indispensable read.

It provides an interesting background for US silence about the escalatory alleged Israeli assassination of a Hamas leader in a fancy hotel in the middle of Dubai, bordering on complicity. (The assassins wore tennis outfits, some say, a reminder to Dubai who rejected an entry visa to Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer this time last year.)

Dubai is seen as a major obstacle in light of Washington's serious efforts at imposing a new round of biting sanctions against Iran as a way of forcing it to freeze its nuclear programme.

Unless it shuts down its trade and other economic transactions with Iran, including investments, tourism etc, as explained below, no sanctions could work effectively.

An increasingly vulnerable Dubai with deep economic troubles is more prone to accept US dictates. And the attack could at least open the way for Abu Dhabi who has excellent relations with Washington and terrible relations with Tehran to move quicker to take over the smaller emirate that it has already bankrolled with $10bn a few weeks ago.

Excerpts:

... Years before the world turned its attention to Dubai's financial crisis ... Dubai was amassing clout  - and money - as Iran's back door to the West  ...

 

Iran's biggest non-oil trading partner provides a stream of household items - from diapers and mobile phones to laptops and washing machines - as well as illicit items such as aircraft parts and computer chips that the US says have nuclear and military uses.

 

The US forbids American companies from sending anything to Iran, with limited exceptions, such as medical supplies, and has pressed other nations to stop doing business with the country. The justice department has prosecuted foreign companies that sell American goods with military uses to Iran.

 

The UAE was the biggest importer of US products in the Middle East and North Africa, the government accountability office said in December 2007. It ships out as much as 80 per cent of the material - and as much as a quarter of that heads to Iran, says Jean-Francois Seznec, a professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington. From 2005 to 2009, trade between Dubai and Iran tripled to $12bn, according to the Dubai chamber of commerce.

 

"Dubai is Iran's offshore business centre," says Afshin Molavi, a fellow at the Washington-based New America Foundation , which analyses public policy. "Dubai plays a huge role in Iran's economy."

Read the full report.