Refined petroleum products were one of the biggest levers we held wrt Iran. Wasn’t zer0 crowing about tougher sanctions just a few days ago? Guess he forgot to cover that little detail on his latest Asian junket.
The big question is whether Iran will be able to copy the Chinese Refinery technology. If so, they would finally be energy independent.
I was thinking there were some broader sanctions in place including some of the Europeans. I know there’s been a lot of anger in Israel over Germany’s economic ties with Iran which resulted in over 4 bln euros in trade in 2008. Sounds as if some German trade groups such as NUMOV headed up by former chancellor Gerhard Schroder are aggresively pursuing more trade with Iran. Russia always talks about sanctions but then when push comes to shove they always back off claiming they won’t work. China clearly isn’t interested.
It appears right now that sacntions have a zer0 percent chance of having any impact irrespective of zer0’s grandstanding.