The Special Purpose Vehicle deal is unlikely to work in full for a rather long time. But, against the background of talks about establishing this innovative international financial payment mechanism for “legal transactions with Iran,” numerous European companies will continue their presence on the Iranian market. And later they will learn to bypass Washington’s sanctions.
The news that the remaining participants of the 2015 Iranian “nuclear deal” (Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia) intend to establish a special payment system to bypass US sanctions in trade with Iran, the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle, is a long-awaited and very remarkable event. The admirers of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Engels will, of course, evoke the law of transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, formulated by the two German philosophers and note that dissatisfaction with America’s unilateral actions has simmered for a long time. Other experts will say that “everyone is sick of the US” and even the most loyal allies could no longer ignore the disrespectful attitude of Washington to international law and treaties. Nevertheless, the news that the former Iranian “six” is now operating in the “five against one” format is likely to become one of the most significant news of the outgoing year 2018 in the entire world political and economic system.
The reason for the hatred of Donald Trump’s administration towards the Iranian regime is connected with the powerful Israeli lobby in Washington. Another tragic error also plays its role: that Tehran is a convenient sparring partner for Washington, which can be used to work out the “close combat” tactics, unacceptable in relations with Russia or China. In other words, some representatives of the Washington establishment consider the public flogging of Iran a “small victorious war” that will make an indelible impression on Syria, Venezuela, and maybe even on Russia and China.
The Special Purpose Vehicle deal of September 25, 2018, when such irreconcilable opponents as Russia and Britain sat at one table in New York, will become one of the most sensitive diplomatic defeats of the State Department and the entire US administration. Today, changes in international relations that have long been brewing and are connected with America’s loss of its dominant position in the world have become obvious. First, the “closest allies,” including Britain and Germany, rejected their “voluntary subordination” to the US leadership and readiness to outsource their foreign policy to Washington. Second, Karl Marx was right when he wrote that “at 300 percent of the profit there is not a crime at which the capital will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.” The situation for European companies operating in Iran is almost as dramatic as in Karl Marx’s long-standing example. Of course, they are afraid to lose their positions in the US market, which is still the most lucrative, capacious and most familiar for most European firms. On the other hand, being under the threat of resumption of economic sanctions that actually reduced the Iranian economy to the century-ago level, including the disconnection of Iranian banks from the SWIFT payment system in 2012, Iran is, of course, ready to make significant concessions to foreign partners who consider current US actions treacherous and irrational. And many companies are ready to work with Iran for a good profit. Their lawyers will, of course, invent how to circumvent the US sanctions and later Washington will perhaps change its mind. I am convinced that these thoughts were in the heads of numerous lobbyists of European industrial companies and banks that influenced the positions of London, Paris and Berlin on the issue of ignoring the threat of the American sanctions.
What has been said about the “greed for gain” that hit the Europeans does not apply to China and Russia. Their participation in the discussion in New York on how to counter the new US sanctions against Iran can be regarded as formal. In any case they would ignore the US actions, even without coordinating their policies with the European capitals. But the presence of the two countries at the negotiating table in New York leads to an important conclusion: Beijing and Moscow are now considering themselves in a state of full-scale economic war with Washington. The two countries have completely different tactics of conflict: Russia is trying not to react to the US sanctions, it is patiently trying to neutralize their negative consequences and is striving to cut all those threads that still connect its economy with the American one as quickly as possible. Beijing’s tactics is completely different. This is “an eye for an eye” with every sanctioning action of the United States followed by an immediate and symmetrical response. But no matter how different the actions of China and Russia are “in form,” they are inherently identical and aimed at steadfast resistance to Washington’s hostile actions.
The Special Purpose Vehicle deal is unlikely to work in full for a rather long time. But, against the background of talks about establishing this innovative international financial payment mechanism for “legal transactions with Iran,” numerous European companies will continue their presence on the Iranian market. And later they will learn to bypass Washington’s sanctions. This will be the main sign of the US diplomatic defeat in this conflict, destructive and completely useless for all the parties involved.
