Ships from the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) are regular guests in Hamburg harbor. But recently their seem to be some changes. While all the IRISL ships used to have those letters written on their gray sides, they are now painted black and the letters are gone. Many of these ships also changed their names.
These three are one and the same ship:
Iran Seestan (bigger)
Sea Flower (bigger)
Limnetic (bigger)
Iran Seestan (IMO 9167289), found here, with the homeport of Bandar Iman Khomeini was renamed Sea Flower and re-registered in Valletta, Malta. It was again renamed to Limnetic also registered in Malta.
The reason are U.S. sanctions against Iran. By renaming the ships and formally changing owner and homeport IRSIL tries to evade them. In total 154 of Iran’s ships have recently been renamed at least once.
Does this simple trick work or is this as stupid as selling Chinese fruits in Iran under an Israeli brand name?
For now it does. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated these ships on its Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN). The most current one from April 20 lists the Sea Flower but not the Limnetic.
So everyone is free to do business with that ship.
This game of cat and mouse can continue endlessly without any result. That is why Senator Joe Lieberman (Likud, Israel) wants to launch additional sanctions:
Specifically, our bill will amend the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act to allow the President to sanction foreign companies that are involved in the sale of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran, or that provide insurance or shipping for the delivery of these products to Iran, or that assist Iran in maintaining its own refineries.
Those companies to sanction would be the Swiss Vitol, the French Total and British Petroleum as well as Lloyds London and others. They certainly will make some noise against such hubris and if those sanctions are really to happen will arrange ways around them.
Not only lunatics like Lieberman, Bayh and Kyl have signed on to that new sanctions bill. So called ‘liberals’ like Chuck Schumer and Russ Feingold are also on board and Sec State Hillary Clinton talks about ‘crippling sanctions’.
Where again is the change promised during the election campaign?
Like those Iranian ships U.S. policies have only changed in color and in name. The U.S. ship of state is still the same and is still sailing in the same direction.