Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 14, 2007 / 28 Sivan, 5767

Pulling money can break Iran

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The past week has very possibly been the key turning point in the drive to cripple the Iranian government and force it to back off its nuclear weapons program. Uncovered by the mainstream media, a courageous and far-sighted effort by Reagan's assistant secretary of defense, Frank Gaffney, to force state pension systems to stop investing in companies that do business with Iran or Sudan has won key victories in Florida, California and Ohio.


Spurred by vigorous lobbying by key legislators in each state, these massive pension funds are now committed to disinvest from companies that invest in Iran's or Sudan's energy industries.


Gov. Charlie Crist (R) of Florida signed legislation last week banning such pension-fund investments. On June 5, the California Assembly unanimously voted to require CalPERS and CalSTRS, the public employee and teacher retirement systems, to disinvest from companies that invested in Iran's defense, nuclear or oil industries. CalPERS has about $2 billion now invested in companies that would be covered by the law. Imagine the hit that these companies' CEOs and directors will take in their bonuses that are linked to stock prices when these shares are dumped on the market! California Assemblyman Joel Anderson, noting that "money is the mother's milk of terrorism," decried how California pension funds — the largest in the country — are "funding … terrorist groups that are trying to kill us."


Meanwhile, in Ohio, the five public pension systems gave in to demands from state legislators that they too disinvest from companies that are doing business in Iran and Sudan. The pension funds had originally resisted calls for disinvestment, claiming they impeded their mission of maximizing returns on their investments, but they have now told the state House Speaker, Jon A. Husted — who brokered the deal — that "they would work to pull most of their money out of companies with ties" to Iran or Sudan, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Their decision came as a bill to require such disinvestment was working its way through the legislature.


These actions come on top of the trailblazing decision of Missouri state Treasurer Sarah Stillman to stop investing in companies that do business with Iran, Syria, Sudan or North Korea.


United Nations sanctions are important, but these state pension decisions directly impact the 485 companies that Gaffney's group, www.disinvestterror.org, has found to invest in the four terror-sponsoring nations identified in the Missouri disinvestment program.


Iran's key vulnerability is its economy, which is totally dependent on energy revenues. Eighty-five percent of government revenues come from the energy sector, and these revenues are expected to drop from $55 billion in 2006 to only $44 billion this year due to a rise in domestic demand for energy and decreasing energy production. By 2014, it is estimated Iran will export no oil at all unless foreign investment comes to the rescue and helps generate additional production. Iranian oil reserves are the second largest in the world, but are of no use to the ayatollahs unless they can get at them. By cutting off foreign investment in the energy sector, these state governments have gone a long way toward destabilizing the Iranian regime.


Now it is up to Congress to pass legislation requiring the Bush administration to apply the sanctions already legislated in the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act passed in the mid-90s but never applied due to national security waivers by Presidents Clinton and Bush. By forcing the president's hand — even passing the bill over his veto — Congress will relieve Bush of a political quandary. The reason the president keeps granting waivers on the applications of the formidable set of sanctions that could descend on Iran is that Europeans resent the extraterritorial application of American power over their companies that invest in Iran. (That's why state pension fund disinvestment is so effective: It is a way of leveraging foreign companies through market forces even though we have no political control over them.)


All the speculation about military action against Iran misses the point: It is through economic disinvestment in their energy and banking industries that we can exert maximum leverage and likely topple this pernicious regime — or force it to give up its nuclear program.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



Dick Morris Archives


© 2007, Dick Morris

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works