July 2009
In contrast to some analysis that one section is representing the workers and lower casts and the other section represents the middle class or neo-liberals, it must be said that none of the above sections have such a followers or representations.
The Iranian People’s social movement which is at one of its critical junctures has faced many ups and downs in the past thirty years. This recent uprising cannot be considered separate from the struggles of the past thirty years, as it follows the same path and makes similar demands. These are the same demands that were never fulfilled, they have been brought up time after time by various sections of the society and they were met with severe repression by the authorities.
In some articles and essays of leftists in the west – people who the Iranian left expected their support – refer to what occurred after the recent election as a “coloured revolution”. Such analysts sometimes even wished for its failure and congratulated the winning side, perhaps because the anti-American rhetoric of the Iranian government were the only thing that got published in Western media. In some media outlets there were much noise made over the coverage of what happened after the election, and people who knew nothing of the demands of our people portrayed themselves as such staunch supporters that one begins to think they were the orchestrators of the movement. In this age of media manipulation, confusion and lack of reporting on events and positions, many opinions are changed and made appear as if the movement was pre-planned. It is interesting to note that there are two different groups that called this movement a velvet revolution. Both groups saw the appearances and both groups, from the left and the right, called this popular movement a velvet revolution, and neither have an understanding of the Iranian society and its recent movements.
There are plenty of reasons and evidence that in the last thirty years, the ruling governments of Iran were supported by the USA, its allies, and generally the western world. There has been no open conflict between them and what we've witnessed in the past (slogans like “Down with the USA”, “Death to Israel” and the like) was all a cat and mouse game to distract the popular views. The only true determinant in policies was the vast economic profits...
There is a lot of evidence to support that argument. There is a saying in Persian; “should we take the fox's word or the chicken feathers sticking out from under him?” In the past thirty years there has been so much evidence that it has become undeniable, except by regimes similar to the Iranian one and their western trading partners. This game has brought in immeasurable profits for the investing companies. Governments of the USA, Russia, and other European countries have been using issues such as Salman Rushdie, human rights, or the nuclear file to apply pressure on Iran and sign contracts, reap astronomical amount of profits, and receive concessions similar to those offered to Russia by the Qajar dynasty at Turkmenchay – and they have done just that in the past years.
In such an environment – especially with the imposition of sanctions – a large number of trade deals were done in black-markets, and continues to be made that way. These profits cannot be compared to that of the official deals. This is very lucrative for both sides of the deal – which happen to be the children of Mullahs and others in power. For example, Iran is the third largest importer of cigarettes from America – although not officially, or, on purchasing of weapons and armaments and many other items.
To shed further light on the subject, we will start with current situation.
From the start, creation of the Islamic Republic was approved by four industrial powers – the USA, the UK, France, and Germany – in the Guadeloupe conference. From then on, the revolution of the people of Iran was directed in a specific way in accordance with the agreement between the fundamentalists and the west. The aim of the letters that went back and forth between the mullahs and the western leaders, the obvious support of the western circles of those religious leaders in Iran was clear for all to see. The policies of that period like the creation of a green belt around the former USSR, formation of religious poles in order to defeat the eastern bloc and ... were openly discussed in the literature of the politicians in those days. That is an undeniable fact, and anyone who can perform basic media research is able to find a vast amount of evidence to that effect.
· Following the revolution the American hostage crisis occurred. It has been discussed widely, and based on evidence its main goal was to derail the fight for independence from USA and the international capitalist system as a whole. As such, after suppressing internal independent groups, the hostages were returned the conservative government of Ronald Reagan. Reagan announced to the media that he received the best gift during his presidential period from Iranian leadership. As a result of that demeaning accord (the Algiers accord which was signed by Iran, involving the then Prime Minister and his deputy) they agreed to return the hostages, an act that was even denounced by the President of that period – Bani Sadr – as being the Vosough od-Dowleh -type accord”.
After that, the Iran-Contra affair happened along with the travel of the U.S. Vice President McFarlane to Iran, the full report of which is available in Tower Report whose finding was the revelation of the secret deal to sell arms to Iran via non-governmental channels for 5 years. The income from those arms deal was spent on paramilitary forces in Latin America. Gradually it was revealed that at least 2008 TOW rockets and 235 Hawk missiles were sold to Iran. It was also revealed that the majority of the cargo was provided by Israel.
Next came the events of 1988, the massacre of political prisoners while the west and U.S. kept their mum. At the time no formal complaint was made for this crime genocide while at the same time the Libyan government was taken to court for the bombing of an airplane with 200 passengers on board. Are human lives valued differently from person to another? The only reason can be that those murdered in Iran in 1988 were politically against the west and U.S. and therefore not worthy of the efforts.
After the mass murder of political prisoners in 1988, the regime collected its reward when number of loans flooded Iran. They came in from various western sources. Iran received close to $50 billion in span of 3 years. These loans allowed the Iranian government to assassinate its critics in various places in the world where glimpses of such examples were seen at Mykonos Trials and other examples. According to some sources there were about 200 assassination cases.
The murders of Dr. Ghassemloo, Bakhtiar, Kazem Rajavi and Fereidoon Farrokhzad abroad and hundreds of other murders inside the country like the Forouhars, Mokhtari, and Pouyandeh, were committed under the sleepy eyes of the west. It is interesting to note that in all of those times at least one of the forces involved in today's events in Iran was in power.
After such incidents were exposed, the west turned to support the political reforms and reformists in Iran and began to deal with the reform government. Large contracts by corporations like Total and Royal Dutch Shell were signed on the oil and gas fields, and large exclusive contracts such as Crescent, Iran Cell and others were given to big International corporations. Corporations like Halliburton (owned by Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice) became active in Iran. In this period of apparent reformism, repressive organs were rebuilt and which can be seen in action today. Silence of the West in the 09 June 1999 student uprising, their silence on the issue of prisoner tortures – at that time the US was busy behaving similarly in Guantanamo and other locations – and the dealings of the reform government with Iraq, Afghanistan, the middle east and even in the Balkans, all point to the compatibility of the methods of government in Iran and the west.
About this cooperation we can point to the following items:
1. Cooperation between the USA and Iran in the Balkans in dividing the former Yugoslavia is a shining example of the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and the western expansionist policies working together. In that period, the cooperation between the two sides in breaking up Yugoslavia and signing bilateral contracts coincided with the assassination of Iran's political enemies abroad.
With the start of war in Yugoslavia, Mohammad Reza Naghdi was sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina as the head of a battalion of Revolutionary Guards Corp. and was one of the three Revolutionary Guards commanders until the end of the conflict in that region. At that time, the U.S. and the NATO had created an air cover to neutralize the Yugoslav air force so that the Mujahidin forces and Iran's help would reinforce Bosnian defences.
In the Balkan war, Rasim Delic, a Muslim, also the commanded the volunteer Revolutionary Guards Corp. sent to Bosnia. While the military base was under the command of Revolutionary Guards Corp. officers, the entire volunteer force was operating as part of the Al-Mujahed brigades. That brigade contained over 2000 foreign fighters as of 1993 and according to Ali Ahmad, an Afghan Mujahedin who is currently imprisoned at the Zenitsa Prison, was responsible for the murder of 24 civilians in Delic's village. In 1993, the same brigade murdered tens of Serbian prisoners in Orasac and put the victims’ severed heads on display in the village streets.
Rasim Delic, the 56 year old general of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army is currently accused of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. He was the commanding officer of this army in the early half of the 1990's – between 1992 and 1995. As part of the charges that General Delic must answer in Hague is the rape of tens of Croat and Serb women and children by the volunteer foreign forces that were operating under his command. In the past few years Rasim Delic was working with a few import and export companies that were founded by Kharis Zilasic, Head of Bosnian Security Forces, and mostly have business ties with the Islamic Republic.
2. Cooperation between Iran and the USA in bringing the Karzai government to power in Afghanistan.
The German Conference for Afghanistan after Taliban was a start for coordination of efforts between Iran and the west in post-Taliban Afghanistan. That cooperation existed during the time of the USSR occupation of Afghanistan and Iran was in lock-step with the west in providing the Afghan Mujahedeen with the logistical and weapons to help they needed. Iran’s assistance and the training of the Mujahedeen forces during their fight were so extensive that there is no need to be reiterated.
The cooperation between the both sides in Afghanistan continued with Iran’s representative at the Afghanistan Conference in Hague. Reports of the possibility of cooperation between Iran and NATO, or recent published news that the Islamic regime has been negotiating with German corporations about using Iranian soil to send non-military equipment to the German forces stationed in Afghanistan, as well as recent message by Obama, all show signs of a of the USA's policy in dealing with Iran.
In March there was a rumour circulating that the USA and NATO signed a secret deal according to which all their military cargo was to be shipped to Afghanistan via Iran. That deal was signed without the knowledge of the members of parliament in Iran, and the only person aware of it was the Supreme's Leader's private secretary. From the parliamentarians, the only person aware of that deal with the head of the security and foreign policy committee of the parliament. London’s Sunday Times Newspaper dated 29 March 1999 reported that Iran and the USA had begun their first round of talks regarding the end of war in Afghanistan.
The same paper wrote that Iranian and American diplomats – initiated by the Russians, participated by a British diplomat acting as liaison - met on 27 March. Patrick Moon, the head of the Central and South Asian division of the U.S. State Department and the Iranian deputy Foreign Minister were part of the talks. After objections by some members of parliament in Iran about the lack of information about that important meeting, the committee of foreign relations said that since Pakistan was in unstable political times the U.S. gave given Iran many concessions in order to send its military cargo to Afghanistan through Iran. However, no one mentioned what these concessions were and to whom and in what meeting they were granted.
3. Cooperation between the USA and Iran in bringing about an Islamic government in Iraq. According to polls after the occupation, the people of Iraq wanted a secular government. Those polls were verified by reputable centres such as Oxford University. However the negotiations and agreements between Iran and the USA resulted in Nouri Al-Malki's rise to power and secular forces were moved to the sidelines. Iran and the USA had three rounds of meetings about Iraq, and at each round, high ranking members of military and security officials participated from both sides. One of those negotiations happened on 29 May 2007 which was reported by Associated Press on 19 May, quoting the Iranian Foreign Minister in Pakistan.
Meanwhile in the media, both sides were accusing each other of not cooperating on the security issues in Iraq. However, the cooperation of both sides resulted in the current Iraqi government's rise to power as well as its stability. Everyone knows that the current Iraqi government is a close friend of the Iranian regime and the majority of its members are people who lived in Iran for many years and no country in the region has as much influence in Iraq as the Iranian government.
4. In the past three decades Iran and the USA have worked very closely along with the western capitalist world in bringing about religious governments like the aforesaid examples. In all three examples above, if the cooperation between the USA and Iran didn't exist, it would have been impossible for the said religious governments to come to power. And thus such countries could not have been kept and maintained for the benefit of expansion of international capitals and for the capitalist markets. However, at the same time, Iran itself was not immune in such dealings.
In addition to arms purchased from first and second hand sources, we can point to the examples below regarding the large economic deals in the past few years:
· Fars News Agency quoting from Magic City: “The American Halliburton Oil Company has sold 40 million dollars worth of refinery equipments to Iran despite the U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. After the economic sanctions were passed against Iran, Halliburton started to create foreign subsidiaries in order to be able to circumvent the embargo rules. This was because the sanction rules only applied to American companies and did not bar foreign companies from dealing with the sanctioned countries. William Thompson, the New York inspector questioned Halliburton on its dealings with Iran. However, the heads of Halliburton believe their activities in Iran did not break any US laws.”
The vice-chair and the CEO of Oriental Kish Corporation and Dick Cheney, the former Vice President of United States were two key players in facilitating the Halliburton-Oriental deal in Iran. Dick Cheney's trip to Iran in 2000, which was made to pave way for the Gas and Petroleum contracts in Iran, was kept secret for many years. But the main story began when Halliburton won the bid to drill for the South Fars Oil Field back in 2002 – a lucrative deal according to which the company was contracted to dig 12 wells in phases 9 and 10 of the South Fars Fields, and it was expected to find Oil by 2007 in two land and sea sections and to extract 50 million cubic meters of natural gas and more than 400 tons of sulphur from those locations.
Of course Halliburton was not alone in this deal. The Halliburton and Oriental consortium was the joint winners of that contract. The story got even more interesting; Halliburton had suggested $23 million for the wells and was asking for $282 million in total, however, the government of Iran at the time – which as the client should have suggested less– gave the consortium $360 million dollars in the final version of the contract.
· The contract to assemble 55000 Chrysler automobiles while that company was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was reported that a number of high ranking deputies from the Revolutionary Guards Corp. had gone to Dubai to meet with the American company – with the help of a number of International brokers. For this reason, the Dubai Airport and the city were in a security lock-down. According to some report the Iranian military delegation came to a preliminary agreement with Chrysler which was the biggest help possible to Chrysler at the time of its bankruptcy.
In those negotiations the Revolutionary Guards Corp. commanders announced their approval – in the name of the SAIPA Company – for the purchase of 55000 Chrysler automob
In contrast to some analysis that one section is representing the workers and lower casts and the other section represents the middle class or neo-liberals, it must be said that none of the above sections have such a followers or representations.
The Iranian People’s social movement which is at one of its critical junctures has faced many ups and downs in the past thirty years. This recent uprising cannot be considered separate from the struggles of the past thirty years, as it follows the same path and makes similar demands. These are the same demands that were never fulfilled, they have been brought up time after time by various sections of the society and they were met with severe repression by the authorities.
In some articles and essays of leftists in the west – people who the Iranian left expected their support – refer to what occurred after the recent election as a “coloured revolution”. Such analysts sometimes even wished for its failure and congratulated the winning side, perhaps because the anti-American rhetoric of the Iranian government were the only thing that got published in Western media. In some media outlets there were much noise made over the coverage of what happened after the election, and people who knew nothing of the demands of our people portrayed themselves as such staunch supporters that one begins to think they were the orchestrators of the movement. In this age of media manipulation, confusion and lack of reporting on events and positions, many opinions are changed and made appear as if the movement was pre-planned. It is interesting to note that there are two different groups that called this movement a velvet revolution. Both groups saw the appearances and both groups, from the left and the right, called this popular movement a velvet revolution, and neither have an understanding of the Iranian society and its recent movements.
There are plenty of reasons and evidence that in the last thirty years, the ruling governments of Iran were supported by the USA, its allies, and generally the western world. There has been no open conflict between them and what we've witnessed in the past (slogans like “Down with the USA”, “Death to Israel” and the like) was all a cat and mouse game to distract the popular views. The only true determinant in policies was the vast economic profits...
There is a lot of evidence to support that argument. There is a saying in Persian; “should we take the fox's word or the chicken feathers sticking out from under him?” In the past thirty years there has been so much evidence that it has become undeniable, except by regimes similar to the Iranian one and their western trading partners. This game has brought in immeasurable profits for the investing companies. Governments of the USA, Russia, and other European countries have been using issues such as Salman Rushdie, human rights, or the nuclear file to apply pressure on Iran and sign contracts, reap astronomical amount of profits, and receive concessions similar to those offered to Russia by the Qajar dynasty at Turkmenchay – and they have done just that in the past years.
In such an environment – especially with the imposition of sanctions – a large number of trade deals were done in black-markets, and continues to be made that way. These profits cannot be compared to that of the official deals. This is very lucrative for both sides of the deal – which happen to be the children of Mullahs and others in power. For example, Iran is the third largest importer of cigarettes from America – although not officially, or, on purchasing of weapons and armaments and many other items.
To shed further light on the subject, we will start with current situation.
From the start, creation of the Islamic Republic was approved by four industrial powers – the USA, the UK, France, and Germany – in the Guadeloupe conference. From then on, the revolution of the people of Iran was directed in a specific way in accordance with the agreement between the fundamentalists and the west. The aim of the letters that went back and forth between the mullahs and the western leaders, the obvious support of the western circles of those religious leaders in Iran was clear for all to see. The policies of that period like the creation of a green belt around the former USSR, formation of religious poles in order to defeat the eastern bloc and ... were openly discussed in the literature of the politicians in those days. That is an undeniable fact, and anyone who can perform basic media research is able to find a vast amount of evidence to that effect.
· Following the revolution the American hostage crisis occurred. It has been discussed widely, and based on evidence its main goal was to derail the fight for independence from USA and the international capitalist system as a whole. As such, after suppressing internal independent groups, the hostages were returned the conservative government of Ronald Reagan. Reagan announced to the media that he received the best gift during his presidential period from Iranian leadership. As a result of that demeaning accord (the Algiers accord which was signed by Iran, involving the then Prime Minister and his deputy) they agreed to return the hostages, an act that was even denounced by the President of that period – Bani Sadr – as being the Vosough od-Dowleh -type accord”.
After that, the Iran-Contra affair happened along with the travel of the U.S. Vice President McFarlane to Iran, the full report of which is available in Tower Report whose finding was the revelation of the secret deal to sell arms to Iran via non-governmental channels for 5 years. The income from those arms deal was spent on paramilitary forces in Latin America. Gradually it was revealed that at least 2008 TOW rockets and 235 Hawk missiles were sold to Iran. It was also revealed that the majority of the cargo was provided by Israel.
Next came the events of 1988, the massacre of political prisoners while the west and U.S. kept their mum. At the time no formal complaint was made for this crime genocide while at the same time the Libyan government was taken to court for the bombing of an airplane with 200 passengers on board. Are human lives valued differently from person to another? The only reason can be that those murdered in Iran in 1988 were politically against the west and U.S. and therefore not worthy of the efforts.
After the mass murder of political prisoners in 1988, the regime collected its reward when number of loans flooded Iran. They came in from various western sources. Iran received close to $50 billion in span of 3 years. These loans allowed the Iranian government to assassinate its critics in various places in the world where glimpses of such examples were seen at Mykonos Trials and other examples. According to some sources there were about 200 assassination cases.
The murders of Dr. Ghassemloo, Bakhtiar, Kazem Rajavi and Fereidoon Farrokhzad abroad and hundreds of other murders inside the country like the Forouhars, Mokhtari, and Pouyandeh, were committed under the sleepy eyes of the west. It is interesting to note that in all of those times at least one of the forces involved in today's events in Iran was in power.
After such incidents were exposed, the west turned to support the political reforms and reformists in Iran and began to deal with the reform government. Large contracts by corporations like Total and Royal Dutch Shell were signed on the oil and gas fields, and large exclusive contracts such as Crescent, Iran Cell and others were given to big International corporations. Corporations like Halliburton (owned by Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice) became active in Iran. In this period of apparent reformism, repressive organs were rebuilt and which can be seen in action today. Silence of the West in the 09 June 1999 student uprising, their silence on the issue of prisoner tortures – at that time the US was busy behaving similarly in Guantanamo and other locations – and the dealings of the reform government with Iraq, Afghanistan, the middle east and even in the Balkans, all point to the compatibility of the methods of government in Iran and the west.
About this cooperation we can point to the following items:
1. Cooperation between the USA and Iran in the Balkans in dividing the former Yugoslavia is a shining example of the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and the western expansionist policies working together. In that period, the cooperation between the two sides in breaking up Yugoslavia and signing bilateral contracts coincided with the assassination of Iran's political enemies abroad.
With the start of war in Yugoslavia, Mohammad Reza Naghdi was sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina as the head of a battalion of Revolutionary Guards Corp. and was one of the three Revolutionary Guards commanders until the end of the conflict in that region. At that time, the U.S. and the NATO had created an air cover to neutralize the Yugoslav air force so that the Mujahidin forces and Iran's help would reinforce Bosnian defences.
In the Balkan war, Rasim Delic, a Muslim, also the commanded the volunteer Revolutionary Guards Corp. sent to Bosnia. While the military base was under the command of Revolutionary Guards Corp. officers, the entire volunteer force was operating as part of the Al-Mujahed brigades. That brigade contained over 2000 foreign fighters as of 1993 and according to Ali Ahmad, an Afghan Mujahedin who is currently imprisoned at the Zenitsa Prison, was responsible for the murder of 24 civilians in Delic's village. In 1993, the same brigade murdered tens of Serbian prisoners in Orasac and put the victims’ severed heads on display in the village streets.
Rasim Delic, the 56 year old general of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army is currently accused of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. He was the commanding officer of this army in the early half of the 1990's – between 1992 and 1995. As part of the charges that General Delic must answer in Hague is the rape of tens of Croat and Serb women and children by the volunteer foreign forces that were operating under his command. In the past few years Rasim Delic was working with a few import and export companies that were founded by Kharis Zilasic, Head of Bosnian Security Forces, and mostly have business ties with the Islamic Republic.
2. Cooperation between Iran and the USA in bringing the Karzai government to power in Afghanistan.
The German Conference for Afghanistan after Taliban was a start for coordination of efforts between Iran and the west in post-Taliban Afghanistan. That cooperation existed during the time of the USSR occupation of Afghanistan and Iran was in lock-step with the west in providing the Afghan Mujahedeen with the logistical and weapons to help they needed. Iran’s assistance and the training of the Mujahedeen forces during their fight were so extensive that there is no need to be reiterated.
The cooperation between the both sides in Afghanistan continued with Iran’s representative at the Afghanistan Conference in Hague. Reports of the possibility of cooperation between Iran and NATO, or recent published news that the Islamic regime has been negotiating with German corporations about using Iranian soil to send non-military equipment to the German forces stationed in Afghanistan, as well as recent message by Obama, all show signs of a of the USA's policy in dealing with Iran.
In March there was a rumour circulating that the USA and NATO signed a secret deal according to which all their military cargo was to be shipped to Afghanistan via Iran. That deal was signed without the knowledge of the members of parliament in Iran, and the only person aware of it was the Supreme's Leader's private secretary. From the parliamentarians, the only person aware of that deal with the head of the security and foreign policy committee of the parliament. London’s Sunday Times Newspaper dated 29 March 1999 reported that Iran and the USA had begun their first round of talks regarding the end of war in Afghanistan.
The same paper wrote that Iranian and American diplomats – initiated by the Russians, participated by a British diplomat acting as liaison - met on 27 March. Patrick Moon, the head of the Central and South Asian division of the U.S. State Department and the Iranian deputy Foreign Minister were part of the talks. After objections by some members of parliament in Iran about the lack of information about that important meeting, the committee of foreign relations said that since Pakistan was in unstable political times the U.S. gave given Iran many concessions in order to send its military cargo to Afghanistan through Iran. However, no one mentioned what these concessions were and to whom and in what meeting they were granted.
3. Cooperation between the USA and Iran in bringing about an Islamic government in Iraq. According to polls after the occupation, the people of Iraq wanted a secular government. Those polls were verified by reputable centres such as Oxford University. However the negotiations and agreements between Iran and the USA resulted in Nouri Al-Malki's rise to power and secular forces were moved to the sidelines. Iran and the USA had three rounds of meetings about Iraq, and at each round, high ranking members of military and security officials participated from both sides. One of those negotiations happened on 29 May 2007 which was reported by Associated Press on 19 May, quoting the Iranian Foreign Minister in Pakistan.
Meanwhile in the media, both sides were accusing each other of not cooperating on the security issues in Iraq. However, the cooperation of both sides resulted in the current Iraqi government's rise to power as well as its stability. Everyone knows that the current Iraqi government is a close friend of the Iranian regime and the majority of its members are people who lived in Iran for many years and no country in the region has as much influence in Iraq as the Iranian government.
4. In the past three decades Iran and the USA have worked very closely along with the western capitalist world in bringing about religious governments like the aforesaid examples. In all three examples above, if the cooperation between the USA and Iran didn't exist, it would have been impossible for the said religious governments to come to power. And thus such countries could not have been kept and maintained for the benefit of expansion of international capitals and for the capitalist markets. However, at the same time, Iran itself was not immune in such dealings.
In addition to arms purchased from first and second hand sources, we can point to the examples below regarding the large economic deals in the past few years:
· Fars News Agency quoting from Magic City: “The American Halliburton Oil Company has sold 40 million dollars worth of refinery equipments to Iran despite the U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. After the economic sanctions were passed against Iran, Halliburton started to create foreign subsidiaries in order to be able to circumvent the embargo rules. This was because the sanction rules only applied to American companies and did not bar foreign companies from dealing with the sanctioned countries. William Thompson, the New York inspector questioned Halliburton on its dealings with Iran. However, the heads of Halliburton believe their activities in Iran did not break any US laws.”
The vice-chair and the CEO of Oriental Kish Corporation and Dick Cheney, the former Vice President of United States were two key players in facilitating the Halliburton-Oriental deal in Iran. Dick Cheney's trip to Iran in 2000, which was made to pave way for the Gas and Petroleum contracts in Iran, was kept secret for many years. But the main story began when Halliburton won the bid to drill for the South Fars Oil Field back in 2002 – a lucrative deal according to which the company was contracted to dig 12 wells in phases 9 and 10 of the South Fars Fields, and it was expected to find Oil by 2007 in two land and sea sections and to extract 50 million cubic meters of natural gas and more than 400 tons of sulphur from those locations.
Of course Halliburton was not alone in this deal. The Halliburton and Oriental consortium was the joint winners of that contract. The story got even more interesting; Halliburton had suggested $23 million for the wells and was asking for $282 million in total, however, the government of Iran at the time – which as the client should have suggested less– gave the consortium $360 million dollars in the final version of the contract.
· The contract to assemble 55000 Chrysler automobiles while that company was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was reported that a number of high ranking deputies from the Revolutionary Guards Corp. had gone to Dubai to meet with the American company – with the help of a number of International brokers. For this reason, the Dubai Airport and the city were in a security lock-down. According to some report the Iranian military delegation came to a preliminary agreement with Chrysler which was the biggest help possible to Chrysler at the time of its bankruptcy.
In those negotiations the Revolutionary Guards Corp. commanders announced their approval – in the name of the SAIPA Company – for the purchase of 55000 Chrysler automob
