The business end of US, Iran ties

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GA14Ak01.html

The business end of US, Iran ties
By M K Bhadrakumar

The timing of the Iranian decision to take the lid off US company Halliburton's involvement in a giant gas field project in Iran comes at a point when the school of thinking in the US that the Bush administration must opt for a policy of constructive engagement with Tehran has incrementally gained currency in debates over Iran, including in conservative think-tanks.

This week, Iran said that a subsidiary of Halliburton, the Cayman Islands-registered Halliburton Products & Services Ltd would work as a sub-contractor with Oriental Kish Co, an Iranian company, in the South Pars field, believed to be the world's largest natural gas field.

"Halliburton and Oriental Kish are the final winners of the tender for drilling South Pars phases 9 and 10," Pars Oil and Gas Company managing director Akbar Torkan said, according to state television. An unnamed Pars company board member said the deal for the gas fields in the Persian Gulf off the south coast of Iran was worth about US$310 million.

The latest instance of the "engage Iran" school is a US advocacy group dominated by prominent figures of the Republican Party, the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), which, in a paper titled "Iran: A New Approach" calls for the re-opening of diplomatic relations with Tehran, bringing to an end the 25-year estrangement in US-Iran relations following the hostage crisis in the American embassy in Tehran in 1979, shortly after the Islamic revolution of that year. CPD is co-chaired by the former US secretary of state George Schultz and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency James Woolsey. Indeed, the Bush administration has all but piped down its rhetoric over Iran lately.

But Iran seems to be seeking some transparency over the Bush administration's intentions. Certainly, the deal over South Pars will be profitable for Texas-based Halliburton. But Iranians do not want to be treated as a one-night stand by the Bush administration either. They would seek a more predictable, enduring, mutually beneficial relationship with the US - indeed, they always wanted it.

Washington's reaction to the media "leak" in Tehran two days back will be keenly watched. The (multi) million-dollar question is whether the Halliburton deal constitutes the first meaningful step of a concerted American diplomatic effort to engage Iran constructively. The initial reaction among the American strategic community is that there's some kind of a "dance" going on here.

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