Iran, an Export-Driven Nation

Although of late, Iran’s oil exports may have dwindled by reason of the sanctions, in normal times Iran is the world’s third biggest exporter of petroleum products. It is the lifeblood of their economy, which has now been excluded from the international banking system. As their currency tanks and their ability to pay for needed refined gasoline, foodstuffs and medicine through traditional trade systems has vaporized. But Iran is a huge exporter of another set of “commodities” – sometimes to her own traditional enemies – that at times appear obvious and at times simply surprising.

We are aware that Iran enjoys fighting surrogate wars – replete with the underlying ability to issue continual denials – against the United States, the Western world and, most of all, Israel. There’s no secret that through what was once a sieve-like border with Egypt and by sea lanes, Iran funneled massive supplies of rockets and missiles to Hamas and it cronies in Gaza for deploying in a deadly shower of explosives into Israel. Because this is military aid to an ally, the transfer of such firepower to Hamas or Iran’s field operative, Hezbollah (which is the ruling party in Lebanon), doesn’t generate hard currency to the motherland.

It’s not as if the world’s superpowers have been abstemious in their military/industrial trade or that “foreign aid” from the biggies is all benign. Picture all those military leaders watching jets with sophisticated weapon systems flying overhead at the annual Paris Air Show. The next one, scheduled between June 17^th through the 23^rd, will be the fiftieth such event. The global arms trade is dominated by the United States, Russia, China, several European Union countries with sophisticated systems emanating from places like Israel and South Africa… and now Iran.

Still, with so many bullets flying around in various conflicts around the world, most notably Africa and the Middle East, it was clear that the “little” contributions to the munitions trade – small arms, RPG rounds, landmines [pictured above], cluster bombs and bullets – were increasingly coming from somewhere other than traditional suppliers. When a mass of new bullets were streaming through places like the South Sudan, Kenya and Uganda in 2006, a researcher in the U.K. wondered where they were all coming from. He and his team began the search. Years passed and the places where these mysterious bullets appeared carried names like Darfur, Congo, the Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Niger and Guinea… sometimes rebels, sometimes incumbents and even al Qaeda and Taliban forces.

“For six years, a group of independent arms-trafficking researchers worked to pin down the source of the mystery cartridges. Exchanging information from four continents, they concluded that someone had been quietly funneling rifle and machine-gun ammunition into regions of protracted conflict, and had managed to elude exposure for years. Their only goal was to solve the mystery, not implicate any specific nation.

“When the investigators’ breakthrough came, it carried a surprise. The manufacturer was not one of Africa’s usual suspects. It was Iran…  Iran has a well-developed military manufacturing sector, but has not exported its weapons in quantities rivaling those of the heavyweights in the global arms trade, including the United States, Russia, China and several European countries. But its export choices in this case were significant. While small-arms ammunition attracts less attention than strategic weapons or arms that have drawn international condemnation, like land mines and cluster bombs, it is a basic ingredient of organized violence, and is involved each year and at each war in uncountable deaths and crimes.” New York Times, January 11^th.

While some of these munitions are in the form of military aid to Tehran’s allies, the demand for such supplies generates substantial cash flow from desperate sources with the ability to pay. And since such trafficking is mostly illicit, buyers are used to circumventing international watchdogs and legal restrictions. “The independent investigation also demonstrated the relative ease with which weapons and munitions flow about the world, a characteristic of the arms trade that might partly explain how Iran sidestepped scrutiny of governments and international organizations, including the United Nations, that have tried to restrict its banking transactions and arms sales… The United Nations, in a series of resolutions, has similarly tried to block arms transfers into Ivory Coast, Congo and Sudan, all places where researchers found Iranian ammunition.” NY Times.  

In fact, it is precisely because these malignant exports are illicit that Iran can prosper in this field – high prices with folks used to hiding their trade. This also illustrates Iran’s amoral position in the world of nations, her willingness to provide arms even to those who hate her (Taliban and al Qaeda) for the right price and a national desperation that suggests a level of moral corruption even greater than even the United States and her allies had previously assumed. But do not forget that this tyrannical regime is equally adept at repressing her own people with little concern for their well-being.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Iran’s practices have generated a rogue’s gallery of allies and a litany of enemies at every level from all over the world… and from within their own borders.