Despite the threat of punishment for companies that seek US federal contracts while dealing with Iran, the Times said successive administrations have struggled to exert authority over foreign companies and overseas units of US firms. Of the 74 companies the newspaper said it had identified as doing business with both the US government and Iran, 49 still work with Iran and have no announced plans to leave.
“More than two-thirds of the government money went to companies doing business in Iran’s energy industry -- a huge source of revenue for the Iranian government and a stronghold of the increasingly powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps” that oversees Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs.
The Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 gives the US president a range of actions to use against companies but Congress is considering tougher steps mandating that firms investing in Iran’s energy sector be denied federal contracts. “We need to send a strong message to corporations that we’re not going to continue to allow them to economically enable the Iranian government to continue to do what they have been doing,” Representative Ron Klein, who wrote the contracting legislation, told the Times.
