The outcome of the present, global conflict may ultimately turn on the implementation of a policy it took President Bush just seven words to declare on November 6, 2001: "You’re either with us or against us."
For too long, it has been possible for far too many around the world to have it both ways. This must stop.
In particular, the time has come to make it clear to those who are helping our enemies that they are not with us – and that there are real costs associated with being against us.
Every one of us can contribute to this effort by making an example of a company that is contemplating doing a lot more business with Islamofascist Iran, at the very moment that it is aggressively pursuing (with help from North Korea) nuclear arms and the ever-longer-range ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. Presumably these are the means by which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to realize his oft-stated goals of wiping Israel “off the map” and bringing about "a world without America."
A company that is at the moment a prime candidate for such treatment is Royal Dutch Shell. According to the Conflict Security Advisory Group (CSAG) – an independent market research firm whose Global Security Risk Monitor online database is the industry standard for assessing publicly traded companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes – this Anglo-Dutch corporation has done billions of dollars of business over the years with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It even has four offices in Tehran.
Last week, however, Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer told participants in a conference call that his firm and a Spanish oil company, Repsol, have entered into a preliminary understanding to help the Iranian regime develop part of its vast South Pars natural gas reserve. Press reports indicate that Tehran believes the deal is worth $10 billion.
To be sure, that $10 billion will translate into profits for Shell and its partner. It will, though, also afford the Islamofascists in Iran revenue streams that will enable them to support more terrorists, to kill more Americans and Iraqis, to destabilize the region and to prepare genocidal attacks on this country as well as our ally, Israel.
Making such a huge, further investment in Iran would, in short, be a very unfriendly act. And Shell must understand that it will be regarded, and treated, as such.
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