McClatchy: U.S. ramps up pressure on Iran

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U.S. ramps up pressure on Iran
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007



WASHINGTON — One year after the United States launched an intensified global economic campaign against Iran with the stated aim of halting Tehran’s nuclear work, the Bush administration is counting its successes — and calling for still more pressure.

In recent months, once-reluctant European countries have joined the effort, which some are calling a financial war, with more vigor.

Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank AG, said recently that it would stop doing business in Iran. France has trimmed export credits that encourage business in Iran and advised French firms, including the oil and gas giant Total S.A., not to start new investments there. Even Japan, heavily dependent on Persian Gulf oil, has pulled back from energy projects in Iran.

While hard to quantify, the multi-pronged effort appears to be causing significant pain in Iran, raising the cost of doing business and delaying Tehran’s plans to modernize its inefficient oil and gas industry, according to a dozen U.S. officials, Western diplomats and analysts.

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