6 October 1997
The Wall Street Journal
Editorial

Total Madness

In the same news cycle that saw the U.S. send the aircraft carrier Nimitz to the Persian Gulf because Iranian and Iraqi warplanes were jacking up tensions there, we have the Prime Minister of France declaring that he "rejoices" in a project that might give Iran the wherewithal to acquire nuclear missiles. That, indeed, is how Prime Minister Lionel Jospin described his reaction to the new $2 billion deal by the French Total Oil Group (along with Russia's Gazprom and Malaysia's Petronas), which will provide Iran with a new income source.

Mr. Jospin, of course, knows that Total's actions could trigger sanctions under the U.S. D'Amato law, which he, like nearly every politician and opinion-maker in Europe claims is an illegitimate "extraterritorial" extension of U.S. law. In fact, a lot of laws all over the globe are extraterritorial in the sense of exacting punishment when foreign interests conflict with some domestic interest. D'Amato seeks to curb access to the U.S. market and financial resources by firms investing heavily in Iran's energy sector; the law's intent is to deny Iran (and Libya) funds to develop weapons of mass destruction. France doesn't let foreign firms do as they will in France either, if their activities are in some way contrary to French law or policy.

That said, we want to make it clear that we don't like trade sanctions. Applying sanctions is often a way for the U.S. President or Congress to win political brownie points at the expense of free and legitimate trade. Legitimate trade of course does not include drugs, illicit arms or products that have military value to a potential enemy. Most trade sanctions don't trouble with such distinctions, however, and indeed are often employed as a form of protectionism. We are sympathetic to business groups that are complaining that foreign policy on the cheap through the use of trade sanctions is in danger of getting out of hand.

The fact is that U.S. policy toward Iran is in serious need of critical analysis. The idea of "dual containment" of Iran and Iraq might have looked neat on paper, but Iran and Iraq are different countries. The world outside the U.S. has a lot more ambivalence against punishing Iran than about sanctioning Iraq, an aggressor country that provoked a major war. The U.S. has organized a common front against Iraq, but has fallen far short of doing so with Iran. Its efforts to do so have led to serious frictions with Europe and Asia.

That is not to say Iran isn't a problem. It has for years supported the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon in their assaults on Israel. As we have editorialized here before, the threat of Iran having control of nuclear missiles is frightening, given the often erratic behavior of its theocratic governments over the past 20 years.

What is truly remarkable is the seeming inability of Europe to come to terms with a threat that is more seriously directed at Europe than at the U.S. Iranian missiles will be far more capable of targeting Paris than Washington. No doubt this nonchalance results from a perception in Europe that the U.S. is responsible for all the heavy lifting having to do with Western security and that Europe can follow its own pursuits secure in the knowledge that NATO will always be there to protect it from harm.

This attitude, particularly prevalent in France, greatly annoys U.S. policy makers, as it should. It is especially annoying when a French prime minister seems to be reveling in yet another exercise in twisting America's tail. This is, to put it bluntly, immature behavior, not untypical of much of M. Jospin's activities in domestic policy, for example his amazing scheme to cure the economic problems of bloated government by expanding government even more.

In the Total instance, the U.S. can go to the mat with France by employing the D'Amato sanctions against Total. Total may have anticipated such a confrontation in recently divesting itself of a U.S. holding. Despite our deep reservations about sanctions, D'Amato is the law, and there is something to be said for knocking the chip off the shoulder of someone strutting around saying "faites mon jour." But this is a lousy way for two putative allies to do business with each other. The U.S. and Europe need to work out a common policy toward Iran, one in which Europe would take some responsibility for global, and its own, security.

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