To read some accounts of the impact of the latest Western sanctions on Iran, you’d think the ayatollahs ought to be packing their bags for exile in Paris. Today’s front page feature in the New York Times about the Islamist regime using out-of-service tankers as storage facilities for all the oil they can no longer sell paints a dismal picture of the country’s economy. The story spoke of the squeeze being put on Iran and the prospect that more economic pain is in the offing as the effects of the sanctions start being felt. All of which ought to presage either the collapse of the government or a decision on the part of its leaders that discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to their nuclear ambitions.
But the colorful imagery of the tankers notwithstanding there was nothing in this piece or any other that would lead one to believe that the ayatollahs are really worried. And that’s a point that left-wing pundit Robert Dreyfuss makes all too clear in an article in The Diplomat. Though an Israel-hater like Dreyfuss being right about a Middle East issue is a case of the proverbial blind squirrel finding an acorn, he’s right when he notes that President Obama’s Iran sanctions policy has more of a feel of a ruse aimed at quieting the concerns of friends of Israel than an actual method of heading off the nuclear threat. Nobody in Washington really thinks the sanctions will work and that includes members of the administration which is touting their ability to make the Iranians give in.
It’s a sad fact that although the Iranian people are in for a rough time this year, the impact of the sanctions may involve nothing more than another round of belt-tightening for a nation all too used to having to put up with hardships since it came under the thumb of Islamic theocrats.
Dreyfuss also points out something you rarely read about on the front page of the Times. Though Iran’s exports are down, the granting of waivers to its biggest trading partners in China and India means that flow of cash into the ayatollah’s exchequer is reduced but still considerable. He quotes one analyst who points out that the $40 billion Iran will get in oil revenue this year is still twice as much that it got only a decade ago. While the administration is “huffing and puffing” like the Big Bad Wolf about what it is doing to Iran, it hasn’t escaped Dreyfuss’s attention — or that of Tehran — that President Obama and his foreign policy team have spent their entire term of office trying to “oppose, deflect, and tried to weaken sanctions legislation enacted by Congress.”
That these supposedly crippling sanctions on Iran are toothless is something that writers on both the left and the right are coming to realize. It’s just the administration and their cheerleaders who are still pretending as if they present a real threat to either the Iranian regime or its ability to keep investing in its nuclear program. U.S. policy toward Iran, is, like the sanctions exemptions granted to China, a “polite fiction” intended to kick the can down road until after November when a re-elected President Obama would then have the “flexibility” to back down from his pledges about stopping the nuclear threat.
Obama let the "green revolution" die on the street with Neda in 2009. then he spent several more years extending his hand and getting the clenched fist. he's also shown that he's just not that into Israel. one has to assume that he doesn't really care whether the Iranians get the bomb or not.
Shouldn't we be proud that we are the first country to elect the black Neville Chamberlain?? So pathetic…
um, China is our banker.
"Islamist regime using out-of-service tankers as storage facilities for all the oil they can no longer sell paints a dismal picture of the country’s economy."_ n nMy buddy, Ali, lives in Teheran with his family, after 20 years living in London, where he knew what it was to pay nearly $2 a litre for gas._ n nIn Iran every man woman and child is given monthly scrip for a certain amount of litres of gas (probably the Iranian equivalent of food stamps and the dole) thereby getting a share of the country's natural resources: this is why in Iran gas sells for about 100 toman=1000rials= $0.12 (or less) per litre. n nThose subsidised scrips for children are sometimes difficult to exchange for money if you don't have a use for them, and since the allowance is big enough, and supply often greatly exceeds demand, many Iranians find themselves sitting with useless paper in their hands, or they sell their scrip for less than market value. n nThen, about four years ago, Iranians started selling their personal quotas– to Iraquis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Syrians, Jordanians, even Turks..all of whom found it was worth the long road journey if they could come back home with a tanker full of iranian gas which, even after all the time and effort and expense, could still be worth DOUBLE even TRIPLE what they had paid. n nIranians had indeed found an export market for their excess supply, except the export markets came to them rather than the other way around. n nSince Iranians are not allowed to sell their quotas themselves to foreigners, a healthy black market has arisen for scrips, often at market value, sometimes higher, which are then sold on to foreign tankers before being driven out of the country…That's where those old tankers being used as storage facilities come in…they are being kept there ready for the next wave of black marketeers from the surrounding countries. n nThey even come from Iraq, which has oil but inadequate refining facilities even for home demand. n nIt wouldn't surprise me in the least if black-market Iranian oil actually fuelled an American Army humvee or two in iraq and Afghanistan. n nAnd THAT, friends, is why the oil sanctions on Iran will NEVER WORK!
Dating back to Imperial Rome, it happened again and again. The Jews enraged their host countries and repeatedly suffered disastrous pogroms. Excesses of Weimar Germany's monied Jewish minority led to the most recent Holocaust. Netanyahu's Israel, abetted by treasonous American Jews, has seized of our democracy and would put us to nuclear war for the glory of supremacist Israel. Historically, distinguishing treasonous from loyal Jews becomes difficult, then irrelevant.
Right you are, John. nWe've got you, YOU, by the short and curlies, and we're gonna yank and yank until you scream Uncle and swear that you're a Jew. that's how we torturing, murderous Israeli Jews treat treasonous Americans like you. nalso, please check in your shorts to make sure that the vertical smile has replaced the sad sac! ntee hee!
Why any of my fellow Jews could support gun control after reading the threats from the likes of JohnWV or AZCowboy or the rantings of Bill Patriot is more than I can figure.
Thanks Ahad, now that you have revealed a list of the names of these posters, I will be sure to go read what they have to say. I am sure they must be saying something right if you so vehemently disagree with them. n nHowever, I totally disagree with JohnWV's anti-Semitic leaning statement that distinguishing treasonous from loyal Jews is irrelevant. There are loyal Jews, they are very important and alienating them is a BAD idea. However, it is true that the loyal ones are mostly not the ones posting or writing on the Commentary website.
I doubt that those "wavers" betoken a deliberate attempt to dilute or ease the impact of the sanctions on Iran. They are more likely the administration's best face on the reluctance of China and India to cooperate. Rather than having US policy openly flouted and to appear powerless, Washington, with this waver business, is posing as in control. n nAs to Robert Dreyfuss, he is more, or perhaps less, than a left wing pundit. He edited Lyndon LaRouche's, Intelligence Review.
It is best that Iran have the Bomb, in order to weaken the influence of Israel. Better for America to have them both distracted, at each other's throats. One the declared enemy of America, the other the feigning friend. I don't know if Obama's policy is a ruse, but I hope so and if so, I hope it succeeds.
bad Bill. bad, bad Bill. It's all well and good to twist the tails of some of the trogs here, and it's even better to mock the oft-noisome Tobin, but this is a little too much. n nnuclear weapons are not suitable for nasty little iranian Ayatollah's to play with.
Well, I would certainly prefer that Israel adopt right ways on its own without any outside pressure. If it does, I guarantee you will see me stop posting sentiments like that. Unlikely to happen though.
you're still a yutz if you think that Iranian nukes are going to lead to anything good. n nif you think that it's gonna produce a positive modification in Israeli policy, you're the hind half of a jackalope.
This is good. Do most Iranians support the government like you? You see, some people are under the false impression that the Iranian people despise the ayatollahs and would overthrow them if and when the opportunity arose. This is clearly false, right? I mean, the poor, persecuted Iranians are the victims of the ayatollahs, right? n nWell, it's about time we dispensed with that myth of the Iranian people as victims of their own government. I support a total war against the Islamofacist Iranian people and government; complete destruction of cities with massive collateral damage until the population of Iran is clearly defeated and surrenders unconditionally. This is how the US used to fight a war. This is how we would end the "war on terror"–no more Hezbollah, no more Hamas, no more Al Qaeda. The USA must set the new precedent of total war against Islamic facist governments. They will all fall in line or just lain fall. Nuff said.