Insider trading, GOP-style?

"States like [North Korea, Iran and Iraq], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."
-- George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 01/29/2002

Indifference? Catastrophic. Good old fashioned collusion? No biggie. If you're General Electric -- which gave the Republican Party and George W. Bush more than a million dollars in contributions between 1998 and 2004 -- or Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old employer, go ahead and do business with "the enemy."

And trade they did. US law forbids US companies to do business with certain countries, including Iran, but foreign subsidiaries of those companies can.

Now, however, GE and Halliburton are pulling out of Iran. Did they get a hot tip or something?