This article from Forbes.com shows how Halliburton skirts the law:

Halliburton, for example, manages to do business with Iran obliquely. Its Dubai-based affiliate, Halliburton Products & Services Ltd., allegedly has no Americans on staff; the Houston oil services company claims it has no direct ownership of the operation. Nevertheless, FORBES has obtained documents showing how Kala Ltd., the British arm of the National Iranian Oil Co., solicited at least 17 separate bids from the affiliate during 1997 and 1998 (when Vice President Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive). A few bids include handwritten notes that say "FOB [free on board] Dubai Airport" or "FOB Dubai port"--meaning that the U.A.E. was just a way station between Halliburton and Tehran.

Other American products documented include spark gaps, which can be used to detonate nuclear bombs, ended up in Pakistan, in the same fashion.

This source claims that Halliburton was involved with bribes and other shenanigans involving Iran's nuclear ambitions:

Scandal-plagued Halliburton -- the oil services company once headed by Vice President Cheney -- sold an Iranian oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, say Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies' business dealings. Halliburton was secretly working at the time with one of Iran 's top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and sold the components in April to the official's oil development company, the sources said. SNIP... Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran's largest private oil companies, on oil and natural gas development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran's nuclear development team and has been negotiating Iran 's nuclear development issues with the European Union and at the International Atomic Energy Agency. SNIP... Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran 's nuclear secrets and accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton, Iranian government officials said. During the first round of interrogations in the judiciary, a huge network of oil mafia has been exposed, according to the IPS report.

And most people probably don't realize that it was White House darling Henry Kissinger who led the way for Iran to become a nuclear country:

In the mid-1970s, led by Kissinger who saw in Iran a "platform state" to fight communism in the region, Washington proposed that The Shah expand his nuclear capacity by acquiring as many as twenty three nuclear reactors.

And like we've seen in "The Sopranos", those who do business with the cabal of gangsters risk ending up arrested, or worse:

CYRUS NASSERI ARRESTED Iranian Press Service

Posted Friday, July 29, 2005 PARIS, 29 July (IPS) Cyrus Nasseri, one of the senior Iranian negotiators with both the European Union's so called "Big 3" and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been arrested. Both "Baaztab" news service that belongs to Mr. Mohsen Reza'i, a former Commandeer of the Revolutionary Guards and the present secretary of the Expediency Council and the independent "Roshangari" said Mr. Nasseri has been arrested by the Judiciary investigating the consortium made of Oriental Kish and Halliburton -- which has US Vice President Dick Cheney as the Chairman of its Board of Directors -- awarded for the exploitation of phases 9 and 10 of the huge South Pars gas and oil field in the Persian Gulf. The information is so far not confirmed by the Iranian authorities and neither sites say when Mr. Nasseri, a carrier diplomat, had been arrested and the mobile telephone of Mr. Nasseri, an outspoken negotiator, was not responding on 29 July. According to Baztab, the phases 9 and 10 should yield 50 billions of natural gas and 400 tons of sulfides by the next Iranian year of 1385 for a cost of 282 millions US Dollars. SNIP... Kish Oriental-Halliburton won the contract last year.

The big question here: Who is really the enemy of the U.S.?

And to whom is Bush and Cheney and their conspirators more loyal? The United States, or their UAE friends? Because, like The Sopranos, they seem to have no loyalty whatsoever except to their own gang.

With Halliburton/USA threatening to go to war against one of its best customers, Iran, one has to wonder what kind of real arm-twisting is going on behind the scenes.

P.S. I'm indebted to the amazing "Octafish" over at Democratic Underground (and elsewhere) for the original incarnation of this information.