Germany is the weak link in sanctions against Iran. This should not surprise anyone. There has long been a strange affinity in Berlin for the Islamic Republic, a relationship born more of greed by Germany’s political and business elites than by any ideological commonality.
Germany pioneered the “critical dialogue” in 1992 in order to tie Iranian respect for human rights to increased trade. The Islamic Republic soon put Germany to the test, murdering four Iranian Kurdish dissidents in the heart of Berlin. Rather than suspend ties, Bernd Schmidbauer, Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s top intelligence adviser, continued to engage Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, the man who ordered the hit, after the assassination.
Despite the evidence of Iranian-sponsored terrorism on German soil, German-Iranian trade ballooned, and Germany became Iran’s largest trading partner. By 1995, German exports to Iran had increased to $1.4 billion, more than twice the level of any other country. Johannes Reissner, head of the Research Division on the Middle East and Africa at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, acknowledged that business dominated Germany considerations. “A powerful motive behind the policy was to maintain contact with Iran not simply as a means to change Iranian behavior, but also as a way to sustain EU-Iranian commercial relations, which were highly lucrative at the time of the formation of the dialogue,” he said.
The problem is not simply mainstream German politicians but transcends the entire German political spectrum. The German far-right makes common cause with Tehran over Holocaust denial, while Claudia Roth, chairman of the German Green Party, high-fived the Iranian ambassador, a man directly implicated in the slaughter of Kurds while serving as governor in Iran’s Kurdistan province.
Just as Germany excused terrorism and human rights violations to capitalize on Iranian business opportunities, so too have German officials been consistently willing to excuse Iranian nuclear cheating. Germany sought to give Iran a free pass or a second chance after almost every International Atomic Energy Agency finding suggesting Iranian efforts to conceal nuclear work or to evade Iran’s safeguards agreement.
On the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sent a congratulatory telegram to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. While they might have excused that as diplomatic protocol, the fact that Foreign Ministry State Minister Niels Annen subsequently attended the celebrations went well beyond what his European peers felt comfortable.
Even as the Islamic Republic bolsters its ballistic missile programs, plots terrorism in Europe, executes children, murders gays, and imprisons women for demanding equal rights, Germany again seeks to profit at the expense of any policy to compel the Islamic Republic to behave according to international norms. The German “Stop of the Bomb” Campaign reports that Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics is again promoting business in Iran, and with companies operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which monopolize the sectors in which German companies seek contracts.
Simply put, Germany might talk the talk of human rights, but it treats such rhetoric cynically as a tactic to provide cover for commercial ambitions.
German willingness to betray Western principles and break diplomatic consensus to make money off abusers, terrorists, and those destabilizing countries across the region has become the rule rather than the exception. As such, if U.S. goals remain to isolate Iran until it ceases its terror sponsorship, stops its support for insurgencies by proxy across the region, and curtails its nuclear ambitions, then it is well past time for the Trump administration to sanction top German industrial leaders whose firms solicit business with the Islamic Republic.
There is no need for additional frameworks for such actions, because the Global Magnitsky Act enables the president to block or revoke visas of individuals or entities responsible for human rights abuses or corruption, as well as to freeze their assets in the U.S. German individuals and entities conducting business with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ economic wing arguably fulfill these criteria.
For almost three decades, German officials have criticized U.S. policy toward Iran and argued they could do better. In reality, they never tried. Their goal was not reform in Iran or to compel a change in Iranian behavior but rather to ingratiate themselves to a murderous regime for the sake of profit, no matter that by doing such business they pumped money disproportionately to hard-line factions and helped the regime further its repression, military programs, and abuses. Demarches simply will not work. Simply put, if the goal is empowering the Iranian people, President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be better off facilitating visas for ordinary Iranians while blocking those for the Germans who facilitate their repression.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
