(DHouv)
While U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are waiting to hear if they’ll get their American fast food faves back, people in Iran who are fans of U.S.-based brands like Coke and IBM are going to have to turn to the black market because the country’s government just isn’t having them anymore.
Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared a ban on American companies and those that do business with Israel, which includes the aforementioned Coca-Cola and IBM as well as Intel and Nestle.
The ban is in response to renewed pressure and sanctions from the U.S. and the United Nations meant to convince Iran that pursuing a nuclear program.
Iran blacklists Coca-Cola, Nestle [ABC (Australia)]
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Oh well.
I can honestly say – if we, as a country, are affected by this – then the terrorists were right.
Honestly, he’s approaching this like we NEED their business in order to function… see above statement.
Coke should send pallets of soda to Iranian citizens who run out of the product and can’t buy it anymore.
“AAAHHHH Im outta coke… Mi life is officially over!”
Yea, and those citizens would be shot on site. Wait, I mean, “tried in front of a jury, then found guilty, then stoned to death.”
You got the orer wrong. Try: “Found guilty, Tried by a court, then stoned to death.”
Stoned to death, found guilty, and then said to have been tried in a court.
I am surprised that Iran had Coke in the first place. Much of the Arab world drinks Pepsi only because Coke is in Israel and Pepsi isn’t. Considering what an anti-semite Ahmadinejad is I am surprised it went on this long.
Another pathetic attempt by the Iranian government at retaliation.
Agreed, it is stupid, but not nearly as stupid as the sanctions imposed on these counties. The US needs to quit meddling in the affairs of others.
I agree.. We should also pull out of the UN.. Cut all aid relief to 3rd world countries and mind our business..
Worked wonders in the 1930s.
O NOES, OUR ECONOMY IS TEH CRIPPL0RZ BY IRAN
WTF about the Nestle thing, though. Nestle is Swiss.
They do business with Israel.
Iran or Israel, Iran or Israel. I think they’d take Israel anyway.
Well I do hope Iran will also immediately end usage of all the products and services invented or built in Israel.
Like the cellphone, Windows NT & XP, the Pentium MMX chip, voicemail technology and hundreds of medical and drug innovations, etc. etc. etc.
Most cellphones run on chips built by ARM or other less prominent manufacturer.
A supermarket near me carries- of all things- Israeli made Coca Cola, made with sugar. Tastes awesome.
Yes, Costco has Mexican Coke in glass bottles, but the Israeli Coke comes in funky shaped 1.5 liter bottles.
They do not, however, carry a Large Farva.
/has nothing to contribute to the conversation but wanted to post anyway, and First! is unavailable for this post.
Doesn’t he worship a Jewish God?
No, he worships himself.
which Jewish god is that?
Christ was Jewish. Allah is the God of Abraham just as Jews and Christians believe. It’s only confusing if you factor in the Trinity and the Son being Jewish. However, God is metaphysical and without the constraints of a religious moniker.
That and I agree he worships himself and power.
Good. Saves us the trouble of putting an embargo on them.
This page actually makes me tear up a little. The pictures show what Iran was like before the Shah came into power, at least in the cities. They were extremely westernized. I don’t doubt Americans would have had any trouble living there at that time.
Wait, I thought the Islamic Revolution is what threw the Shah out of power.
You’re probably right. It was the religious extremism that changed life over there.
The CIA put the Shah back in power by ousting Mohammed Mossadegh, a wildly popular prime minister, in 1953, largely due to him threatening to nationalize the holdings of the Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, now known as British Petroleum.
Iran would have been an ally and not a thorn in our side if it weren’t for ’53.
Read All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer.
Yeah, I think you have your history a little confused. The Shah was in power until ’79 and was viewed as a puppet of the West because of all the Westernization that was going on. It was the Ayatollah who took over and turned Iran into a fundamentalist state.
Yeah, you’re definitely right. My bad.
You should watch Persepolis. Or read the comic.
Thanks for the suggestion. I added it to my Blockbuster queue.
It’s that the Shah was thrown out of power in 1979, but I agree with your feelings.
Man doos tehran.
Obama needs to do something about this, Berlin Airlift-style.
The Berlin Airlift was aid to an ally’s city that happened to lie within the borders of another country. Not only are Iran’s city’s not our allies, we have actively pursued and instituted sanctions against trade with them.
Now, if Italy had banned Coke we might legitimately pursue a Papal Airlift for a thirsty Vatican, but Tehran will just have to get by on its own.
Oh really, I had no idea, thanks professor.
It was a joooooooooooooooke. Dropping crates of Coca-Cola would probably help win the hearts and minds of the Iranian people.
I don’t know about the other companies, but IBM has a strict corporate policy of not honoring any boycott. In fact, the example most commonly used by corporate of this policy is a customer requesting that their product not have any Israeli content. To make such a promise to a customer would be a firing offense.
Enjoy life circa 1700s. Does this mean we can ban the use of algebra?
Nice. Well played.
“Does this mean we can ban the use of algebra?”
So that they’ll have to invent it again…?
I tried to hit the ‘stop’ button as soon as I heard the ‘whooshing’ sound over my head, but was too late…
Bah, you can’t sanction me, I sanction myself! So nananana boo boo.
Let them depend on Russian products–they’ll be begging to let the U.S. back in!
And Chinese goods, too.
For example, Excel toothpaste and other Chinese toothpaste brands contain diethylene glycol (found in antifreeze). I wonder if Ahmadinejad will then blame toothpaste-induced poisoning on us Americans when it was their fault caused by his own “next superpower” policies.
Bite The Wax Tadpole pop! 100% non-Israeli!
Whatever.
Yeah, good luck getting that nuclear program off the ground without computers.
It’s like the angry kid throwing the ball over the fence in some grand act of defiance when we have a crate full of them in the dugout. No big whoop to us and no one’s going to want to play ball with the kid again. Hell, we’ve lost so many of our own balls over that fence (market crash) it hardly makes a difference.
Ever heard of AMD?
There is logic to this:
Step 1) Allow “Great Satan” brands to be sold.
Step 2) Allow women to get an education and/or drive.
Step 3) Mass orgies.
Slippery slope, people!
Step 4: Profit!!!
Don’t they know that IBM helped the Germans track the Jewish people…even AFTER knowing why they were wanting to track them? Why, IBM and Iran are practically brothers!
Like sanctions have prevented our companies from interacting with our “enemies” before.
Hell, for all our bluster, our last administration had business ties to Iran, Saddam’s Iraq, etc.
It will probably also mean that any oil drills or refineries that are somehow associated with America will have it siezed by the government. Any American natural resource company would lose it.
And we care about what Iran thinks…why?
Coke may be banned, but they’ll always have Blood-of-the-Martyrs soda imported from the West Bank.
Well damn. Looks like Iran beat us. Pack it in everyone, Iran stopped buying Crunch bars, Mellow Yellow, big iron main frames, and Dells.
All the better to make American products forbidden fruit for young Iranians.
(BTW, did anyone see the movie Persian Cats? Is it good?)
U.S. companies should have never been there in the first place.
Its disgraceful they would sell their products in Iran, the US Gov is pushing other nations to go along with idea of placing sanctions on the country… and IBM, and Coke think, they as American companies, can still sell their trash over there. This country has a national holiday that celebrates its hate for America (the day the American Embassy was taken over in the 70s).
I say we boycott any company that sells their products in Iran, cause any company who sells to a country that hates us, has no loyalty or pride in America.
Selling to a company that hates us is not disloyal. It’s called business. I used to work in sales – it didn’t matter to me one way or the other if the customer hated me personally. If I had the product they wanted, I would sell it.
They should have banned Nestle years ago, powdered milk + bad water = dead babies!
Fine with me.
I just banned Iran from my house. So what… Whoopee. BFD.
I’d be less than happy with any company I do business with as a client or as a stockholder that also did not abide by the terms of the embargo against Iran.
“The ban is in response to renewed pressure and sanctions from the U.S. and the United Nations meant to convince Iran that pursuing a nuclear program”…. what?
Considering there is a technology trade embargo in place that is supposed to prevent us from selling computers to Iran the ban against IBM and Intel should be meaningless. I’m sure they would have included AMD as well, except they use all of those illegally imported chips in their weapons.