Date: 5/22/1998

Published In: San Diego Union Tribune

Author/Reporter: Dean Calbreath

  When President Clinton partially lifted economic sanctions against
  Iran this week, one of the people watching most closely was a young San Diego
  city employee named Shahriar Afshar.

  Shahriar Afshar, the founder of the Iranian Trade Association,
  is spearheading a nationwide effort to lift most of the sanctions on his native
  land, as well as many of the 71 other countries against which the United States
  has sanctions.

  Shahriar Afshar has picked up some impressive support
  for his cause. Conoco Oil joined his fledgling association in February. Next
  week Afshar will fly to Washington, D.C., for closed-door talks with lobbyists
  from Caterpillar, Unocal, Motorola, Mobil and other companies that are lobbying
  against the sanctions. Next month, he'll take the campaign to London.

  A number of local companies are sympathetic to his cause. "Sanctions against
  places like Iran have hurt us," said Carlos Aylwin, who handles business
  development for contract power at Solar Turbines in San Diego. "Naturally,
  we would never do anything against U.S. policy. But it could benefit us if that
  policy changed."

  Solar Turbines estimates that it's missing out on $50 million a year in contracts
  from Iran because of the sanctions.

  But during a time when the U.S. government is increasing its sanctions against
  foreign countries -- last week against India for nuclear testing, this week
  against China because of national-security concerns -- opponents of the sanctions
  have a tough journey in front of them.

  U.S. sanctions against the 72 countries range from all-out embargoes against
  Cuba, Libya and North Korea to limited trade restrictions involving Mexico and
  Canada.

  The Iranian sanctions came into effect in 1979 after Ayatollah Khomeini took
  power in a bloody coup. In 1996, Congress toughened the embargo by threatening
  to sanction any company -- whether U.S. or foreign -- that invested in oil operations
  in Iran or Libya, on the grounds that both countries continued to support terrorism.

  Under international pressure, the Clinton administration this week decided not
  to sanction a French, Russian and Malaysian consortium that joined in a $2 billion
  deal to develop Iran's enormous gas fields in the Persian Gulf.

  But the sanctions remain in effect against U.S. firms. As a result, "the
  United States is now in the process of ceding the tremendous energy resources
  of much of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian basin to foreign companies,"
  said Frank Kittredge, who heads USA-Engage, an industry-backed, anti-sanctions
  lobbying group in Washington, D.C.

  A growing number of U.S. exporters are pressing for the sanctions to be removed
  altogether. And that's where Afshar comes in.

  Shahriar Afshar was only 10 years old when Khomeini's
  revolution swept through Iran. He spent his days walking through bloodied streets,
  marred by the treads of the Shah's army tanks, as helicopters swooped down on
  student protesters. At night, he and his family would huddle in their
  Tehran apartment with the lights out, hiding from the fusillades of bullets
  that whizzed past their windows.

  In the final days of the Shah's regime, he and his family fled to San Diego,
  linking up with other Iranian expatriates. After graduating from San Diego State
  University, Afshar landed a job at the real-estate assets department at City
  Hall, where he helped sell or lease city land or buildings. He thought of creating
  an Iranian trade group as he was helping the World Trade Center move into its
  new quarters downtown.

  "Part of my job was to contact international chambers of commerce to see
  if they would be interested in moving into the center," he said. "As
  I met with them, I began to think, 'Hey, why isn't there an Iranian trade mission?'
  "

  Shahriar Afshar was further encouraged when Iran elected
  a new president in May 1997: Mohammad Khatami, a relative moderate who has been
  reaching out to create new ties with the West. "If there wasn't this new
  president, I'm not sure I would have formed this association," Afshar said.

  Shahriar Afshar founded the association last September,
  initially attracting foreign-affairs specialists from SDSU. The association
  began to take off after he went to the East Coast in February, visiting with
  Conoco's leading lobbyists in Washington, D.C., Iranian educators in New York
  and
  Iran's ambassador to Canada, which had $1 billion in trade with Iran last year.

  But Shahriar Afshar will face intense opposition when
  he and his group try to persuade Congress to lift the sanctions. Some Iranian
  opposition groups and the powerful pro-Israel lobby want the sanctions to stay.

  "The recent developments in the Iranian government certainly give cause
  for optimism, but more action is needed to bring Iran back into the fold of
  countries that renounce terrorism," said Gary Rotto, executive director
  of the San Diego region of the American Jewish Congress.

  Rotto noted that Tuesday, Argentina expelled seven Iranian diplomats because
  of alleged Iranian involvement in a pair of synagogue bombings in Buenos Aires
  in the early 1990s that killed or injured hundreds of people.

  Shahriar Afshar concedes that there are some instances
  when sanctions are effective, such as the multilateral boycotts of South Africa
  during its apartheid era. But in general, he questions how unilateral sanctions
  can help create change in foreign countries.

  Noting that Iran spends upward of $240 billion a year on foreign exports, largely
  from Japan, Germany, France and England, Afshar said that sanctions are merely
  undermining U.S. companies.

  "If we truly want a global economy, we can't do things like that,"
  he said. "Besides, I just don't understand how it compromises U.S. security
  if Nike sells shoes in Iran or if Ford sells cars there, unless there are missiles
  hidden in the car trunks."

  Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

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Copyright © 1997-1998 Iranian Trade Association. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or mark holders.