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New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

reuters.com

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Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#61

Post by gpm »

Udik wrote: post #56
gpm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IAEA opinion that I've seen is limited to "Iran has complied with the terms of the deal", not "the public has enough information to evaluate that the deal was effective at stopping nuclear weapons", or even "the deal is effective at stopping nuclear weapons development". The latter two (especially the middle one) being outside of the scope of what they discuss. It's possible I missed something, I would be surpris…

The deal was negotiated and signed by US, Russia, China, France, UK, Germany, EU; and it is based on the "IAEA safeguards", a system of inspection and verification of the peaceful uses of nuclear materials as part of the NPT. To suggest that all the major world powers would have signed a deal that leaves space for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and that the IAEA might have been happily certifying the compliance to…

> we have reports and information that proves that the claims are not true

I don't this is an accurate summary, rather it says

> we don't have reports and information that proves Iran is continuing to develop weapons.

And why would they? They aren't a spy agency, they are a monitoring agency. Assuming for the sake of argument that Iran was actively developing nuclear weapons they would have had to fuck up for the IAEA to be aware of it. The IAEA's purpose in all this is to force them to be circumspect, not to catch them if they are being sufficiently circumspect.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#62

Post by idbehold »

shittyadmin wrote: post #25

What a joke, if companies in unrelated countries don't want to play by sanctions, I see no reason to hold it against them. Unrelated states should have no power over this. The amount of hate Huawei gets just for this from otherwise reasonable people is rather excessive.

> Huawei, U.S. authorities assert, retained control of Skycom, using it to sell telecom equipment to Iran and move money out via the international banking system. As a result of the deception, U.S. authorities say, banks unwittingly cleared hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions that potentially violated economic sanctions Washington had in place at the time against doing business with Iran.

> [...] In the United States, Meng would face charges in connection with an alleged conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions, with a maximum sentence of 30 years for each charge.

It seems like the sanctions are only part of the story. The charge is to do with defrauding the banks into violating the sanctions.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#63

Post by hevi_jos »

curiousgal wrote: post #42
austinheap wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of most sanctions, from a diplomatic perspective, is to place enormous financial pressure on an economy so that the population revolts agains the government in question. It's believed that when the "price of onions" becomes too high for a society to tolerate, revolution occurs. I'm not saying the world is/isn't a better place, just explaining the common beltway logic re: Iran sanctions.

Wait, so the U.S. is hoping for Iranians to revolt against a system it helped put in place? Hmmm

Yeah, exactly.

They supported the Iranian revolution expecting they will be able to control the outcome. That was ending the British relationship and starting an only American one with their oil.

This worked out pretty well in Saudi Arabia, which was very primitive and had very small population.

In the end,though,in Iran they are Muslims first and Iranians second, with a long History. They could have accepted all the money from infidels that they could get, and promised whatever to them, but their own religion says they could(and should) lie to infidels. So they did it.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#64

Post by dd36 »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #40
excalibur wrote: post #32

Yeah, and ISIS has been fighting with American weapons for years. Hypocrisy much?

The stupid part is: Why is Iran forbidden from buying telecommunication equipment? God forbid evil Iranians using using smartphones or the Internet.

Because that is what the sanctions define.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#65

Post by [deleted] »

tjr225 wrote: post #51
ams6110 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is much closer to the western point of view on human rights for one thing. It's OK for there to be an objective right and wrong in a conflict.

Are you claiming that Israel is objectively right in this conflict? If so, can you clarify what you mean by that?

[deleted]

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#66

Post by gpm »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #60
gpm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the sanctions that the article is, i.e. the pre-deal ones that Meng Wanzhou is accused of violating. That said, the stated reason for the current sanctions is still nuclear weapons [0]. An accurate evaluation of why the US chose to withdraw from that deal is probably not possible with publicly available information. The limited analysis in your comment seems to assume that the deal was effective, so…

We absolutely have enough information to judge the deal effective: Has Iran detonated a bomb? No. Before the deal (5 years ago), we were hearing that Iran was ~18 months away from a bomb. Yet, no bomb so far. Looks like the deal has been in the black for at least 3.5 years, to me. The reason for pulling out of the deal had everything to do with domestic politics and, on a disorganized level, a bunch of yahoos' power…

The metric of "has Iran detonated a bomb yet" is far to simplistic. What we should care about isn't how quickly Iran gets a bomb, but the probability that it ever does.

To see this via a argument to absurdity suppose that we had an alternate deal that was magically enforced and said "Iran will cease development of nuclear weapons for 10 years, and then we will give them an ICBM or two with warheads on top".

And, I mean, it's certainly possible that it was just a bunch of yahoo's and the deal was effective. It's also possible that the USes various spy agencies have information that made people legitimately concerned about the status quo. It would be outright negligent of the government to tell us (and thus Iran) which it is.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#67

Post by stefantalpalaru »

lamarpye wrote: post #26
simplecomplex wrote: post #4

Can someone explain how the world is a better place by outlawing business with Iran? Remember, the crime here is selling telecom equipment...

Replace Iran with South Africa under apartheid and ask the same question.

> Replace Iran with South Africa under apartheid and ask the same question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israel_and_the_ap...

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#68

Post by yourbandsucks »

gpm wrote: post #66
yourbandsucks wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We absolutely have enough information to judge the deal effective: Has Iran detonated a bomb? No. Before the deal (5 years ago), we were hearing that Iran was ~18 months away from a bomb. Yet, no bomb so far. Looks like the deal has been in the black for at least 3.5 years, to me. The reason for pulling out of the deal had everything to do with domestic politics and, on a disorganized level, a bunch of yahoos' power…

The metric of "has Iran detonated a bomb yet" is far to simplistic. What we should care about isn't how quickly Iran gets a bomb, but the probability that it ever does. To see this via a argument to absurdity suppose that we had an alternate deal that was magically enforced and said "Iran will cease development of nuclear weapons for 10 years, and then we will give them an ICBM or two with warheads on top". And, I me…

But they were on pace to have a bomb by now. And they don't.

So the deal is, at the absolute least, better than not having a deal. Or at least it was until we unilaterally tore it up after getting what we wanted.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#69

Post by hevi_jos »

gpm wrote: post #8
simplecomplex wrote: post #4

Can someone explain how the world is a better place by outlawing business with Iran? Remember, the crime here is selling telecom equipment...

The world is a better [0] place if less people have nuclear weapons. "Outlawing business" (i.e. sanctions) are being used to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Thus it improves the world [1]. [0] Better is somewhat subjective I suppose, but I think we can pretty objectively say "more likely to hold a human civilization 100 years from now". [1] It also undoubtedly makes the world worse in other ways, whether…

That will certainly be from a North American viewpoint.

From the other countries perspective, it is a tremendous power imbalance.

The fact that any city of your country could be destroyed by an invading force in 3 seconds at zero cost for the invaders is for sure not very reassuring.

That actually happened in the US territory with native people, they were exterminated by outsiders with superior technology leaving almost not trace behind. This was costly for the invaders because the technology difference being great was not that great.

Right now, with the US(spaceX) able to put a rocket in any part of the world in 30 minutes with a nuclear head, the power imbalance is extreme. They do not have to risk a single life to destroy an entire city or nation!!

This is something that no country on earth should tolerate and they will not tolerate if if they have enough technology.

Re: New documents link Huawei to suspected front companies in Iran, Syria

#70

Post by ABCLAW »

shittyadmin wrote: post #25

What a joke, if companies in unrelated countries don't want to play by sanctions, I see no reason to hold it against them. Unrelated states should have no power over this. The amount of hate Huawei gets just for this from otherwise reasonable people is rather excessive.

Sorry, what? Reasonable people aren't okay with fraud.

If companies in unrelated countries don't want to play by sanctions, all they need to do is not do business in countries that require them to abide by sanctions.

I don't think anyone has an issue with that position.

In this case, if the allegations are accurate, Huawei committed fraud in order to gain access to both the sanctioning and sanctioned markets, and the arrest which put them front and center in the news is directly related to the violation discussed in this thread.

In large international procurement deals, it's often the case that bidding companies provide certificates indicating that they're acting like good corporate citizens. It's common to have a FCPA certificate (or national equivalent), and sometimes there's a seperate sanctions compliance certificate as well.

This isn't something that large corporations dealing with state-level procurement aren't aware of. They knew they were acting in violation of the sanctions and actively took steps to conceal it. This is brazen fraud.

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