Posted on 09/30/2009 9:29:00 AM PDT by conservativeauditor
Could the U.S. block sales of refined gasoline to Iran as a way of ratcheting up pressure on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime? That's a prospect U.S. politicians have talked up for months. But as the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China prepare for crucial talks with Iran in Geneva on Oct. 1, there's a growing realization that the strategy might not work. "The hype around blocking gas is hugely overdone," says Richard Dalton, who was British ambassador to Iran until 2006 and is now an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. "People use this term Achilles' heel, but it has got very little substance to it."
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Chavez will supply Iran with refined petroleum products and we'll continue selling Citgo gas in this country.
About as much as it hurt Saddam, remember?
I’d be more interested to see how badly a few GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators would hurt Iran.
So instead of Oil for Food we will get Gas for Mahdi?
Liberals believe sanctions would be effective because the targets of those sanctions would feel isolated and not welcome at the Liberals’ cocktail parties and would “force” the sanctionees to be more sociable. Actual physical effects are not considered. references to them are heard as if they had been spoken in pig-Latin Swahili.
Now you’re talking!!
Why do they keep falling back on things that don’t work. As a parent, if a punishment does not work, I don’t use it.
a totalitarian regime can force it’s people to sit at home, in the dark, in the cold, without a car, and like it...or else! Effects would be minimal I fear.
Did Obama throw the Iranian protesters under the bus just so that he could cut a deal later with their oppressors?
You have to know how they define “work.” It has little to do with weapons development and actual foreign relationships. It is all about being an nice guy, “reasonable” and “civilized,” and oh, so politically correct. Whether it works or not does not depend on the reactions of Iran but on the self perception of the sanctioners.
All the while Iran keeps building.........pathetic.
Maybe we should try the reverse, and block Iranian oil and gas shipments, going outbound. Cut off their cash, and its only a matter of time - nukes or not. It would be child’s play to shut down the straits of hormuz for out navy. With the new Saudi mega-pipelines that has been recently built, it is not necessary to ship oil out of the gulf, via the straits of Hormuz for the world’s economy to keep ticking.
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