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Christmas Eve edition with what it portrayed as an exposé of American firms evading sanctions to sell goods to the Islamic Republic.
As the story acknowledged deep in the text, there was nothing illegal going on. The firms were simply selling food products and medical materials to Iran, something that has been authorized since 1999.
The odd thing wasn’t that US firms were selling some of these items, but that Iran was buying American chewing gum, popcorn, Louisiana hot sauce, weight-loss remedies and body-building supplements.
Under the medical category, some sports rehabilitation equipment was even sold to the Iranian institute that oversees Iranian Olympic athletes.
While such sales are authorized in the law, they still require a license from the US Treasury to leave the United States. The New York Times said the Treasury has issued almost 10,000 such licenses since 1999. Through a Freedom of Information Act suit, The New York Times obtained the licenses so it could see exactly what was being sold to Iran.
But the categories of sale items—wheat, medical machinery, food additives, pharmaceuticals—are published every month and reported periodically in the Iran Times.
The New York Times also published the dollar figures on exports to and imports from Iran and the other “terrorism-sponsoring” countries—Cuba, Syria and Sudan. But those numbers are all published monthly by the customs bureau and carried periodically by the Iran Times.
The New York Times implied there was much hanky-panky going on. Its caption on its chart on the dollar volumes of imports and exports said: “American companies have made billions of dollars over the last decade trading with countries that the United States has labeled state sponsors of terrorism, after receiving special licenses exempting them from trade embargo and sanction rules.”
But the law allows sales of medical and food products and the Treasury is mandated to issue the licenses in those categories. It has also issued licenses for the export of materials designed to improve Internet connections for Iranians.
Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury who oversees sanctions, complained that The New York Times was “missing the forest for the trees” by focusing on the licenses rather than the much, much larger previous trade that has been halted.
The newspaper cited some critics as arguing that allowing the sale of even small items with no military value muddies America’s moral and diplomatic authority. Congress authorized the export of food items under heavy pressure from food exporters who thought they could sell vast quantities of wheat and other commodities to Iran. The export of medical materials was authorized because people argued that America would lose its moral authority if it were so crude as to refuse to sell Iran medicines and medical equipment.
The one truly surprising license that the Times reported allowed an unnamed American company to bid on a pipeline contract that would have helped Iran sell natural gas to Europe, the Times said. But US policy—and now EU policy—opposes such pipelines. In its response to The New York Times, the Treasury said nothing about that license. It would be the height of hypocrisy for the United States to authorize such a bid.
It is possible that the newspaper misunderstood the license. Many American oil firms like to get hold of bidding materials from Iran so they know what oil and gas work Iran is developing. It is possible the license authorized the US firm to buy the bidding documents, rather than to bid on the pipeline itself. It is difficult to believe that any US firm would bid as it would be subject to severe public ridicule if that were exposed. It was, in fact, the awarding of a contract to an American firm to start work on the South Pars gasfield in 1995 that sparked such a public furor that President Clinton imposed a total ban on all exports to, imports from and investment in Iran. The current exemptions were enacted four years later when it was agreed the total embargo was excessive.
The law enacted by Congress authorizes exports to Iran of any agricultural product on a list published by the US Department of Agriculture. That is a very broad list that covers not just obvious categories like wheat and rice, but beer, soda and even utility poles.
Levey, in his response to The New York Times, said it was fair to ask if the list endorsed by Congress was too broad. But he said the breadth has helped the United States argue that it opposes the Iranian government, not the Iranian people. That, in turn, he said, has helped build international support for sanctions on things that really matter.
Levey told The Associated Press, “Allowing the export to Iran of food items like hot sauce or salad dressing from the US is required by statute and, in any event, is trivial in the context of our Iran policy. Our efforts are focused on matters like the illicit conduct of the Iranian government and financial institutions that are facilitating it.”
Thus far, no one has asked the Islamic Republic why it has imported American popcorn and hot sauce.
The Iran Times has filed Freedom of Information requests to the Treasury Department since 1990 seeking export licenses going back before the current law. The Treasury Department has repeatedly refused to provide any license information to the Iran Times.
