Senator seeks to stop gasoline exports to Iran

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana said on Thursday he will introduce a resolution in the U.S. Senate on Friday calling for countries to stop exporting gasoline to Iran as punishment for Iran moving forward with its nuclear program.

"To forestall the need for nuclear force, we need tough action now, including economic sanctions, cultural sanctions, cutting off their supply of gasoline, (arms) sales, those kind of things, to convince the radical leaders of Iran that nuclear weapons are something they just cannot have," Bayh said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" morning program.

"Getting a worldwide agreement to ban the export of gasoline to Iran could have a major impact on their thinking," Bayh said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/AR2006011901425.html

[frylock]

1. because sanctions worked so damn well in iraq..

Hey Evan, our sanctions don't do shit to the leadership of these nations. It only serves to make the people weaker, and foment hatred for us.

[brentspeak]

31. Actually, the sanctions did weaken Saddam, considerably.

His attempts to make WMD? Nullified. His military ability to invade neighboring countries? Gone.

[pinerow]

2. Insanity=Doing the same thing over and over again and

expecting different results...:wtf:

[Wilms]

3. "To forestall the need for nuclear force" ???!!!

Sure. Let's drop the bomb.

[enid602]

4. ". . . stop exporting gasoline to Iran . . ."

What does Iran not have adequate refineries? They certainly don't lack petroleum.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[enid602]

8. Iran

Well our government seems to feel they're pretty sophisticated, as they scare us into thinking that the Iranians are close to developing nuclear weapons which can affect us.

[Igel]

11. State-controlled economies can often pull off surprising things.

Soviet science and technology were generally abysmal. They lived to reverse engineer.

Yet their nuclear scientists were top-notch--the nuclear engineers needed a bit of remedial help, to be sure--and their mathematicians ruled.

The first was state-mandated. The second was because math was apolitical: linguistics, computer science, biology ... all were political at some point. Math ... nah.

[Inland]

22. Such as, eg, building refineries.

I suspect the only reason that any gasoline is brought into Iran at the moment is an abundance of refining capacity in the West, so that the refinement was offered cheap.

[thebigidea]

21. oh bullshit. They do not "really live in the middle ages"

much easier to hate barbarians and savages, apparently.

[Zhade]

26. You're so misinformed it's not funny.

Your knowledge of how the Iranian people live is what's in the "middle ages".

Christ, read a book sometime. (And not one from a neoconservative liar.)

[0007]

29. WTF where did you ever in the world get that idea?

[Turbineguy]

7. They used to have a nice one

in Abadan. I think the Iraqis bombed it.

[Zynx]

6. If they cut off their oil exports, we'll have another problem altogether.

They'll see how $80 a barrel oil affects our thinking.

[mike923]

14. We don't buy oil from Iran....

and they need the money they make from selling oil to run their whole economy. If they clam up, they lose big.

[NickB79]

15. Oil is traded globally

If Iranian oil is cut off, China will look for new sources. They will buy oil from whoever is willing to sell at the best price. This means they will be buying oil from the same sources that supply the US with oil. Supply and demand dictates that when demand goes up, so does price.

Locking out Iranian oil will most definitely drive up fuel prices in the US. And this week on National Public Radio, there were reports suggesting Iran has been stockpiling vital goods for the past 2 years in preparation for a trade embargo. With the world oil supply so intensely tight right now, we will lose just as much, if not more than, the Iranians.

[mike923]

16. US strategic reserves....

The US would certainly be effected as the world wide price of oil would certainly jump as a result of Iran deciding not to sell oil anymore. That would most likely cause the US to release their strategic reserves.

Because oil is all Iran has to export, it's entire way of life is dependant on their daily oil sales. Our reserves allows us to wait them out, if that's the game they want to play.

The other Opec countries would gladly up their production to get the sales.

[NickB79]

17. The other OPEC nations are already pumping full-bore

There is almost no excess oil capacity left globally. Saudi Arabia has been claiming they are about to increase oil production for the past 2 years to reign in global oil prices, but have been unable to do so as their oil reserves are being tapped out and depleted.

The largest oil field in Kuwait has gone into decline: http://www.ameinfo.com/71595.html

Indonesia has switched from an oil exporter to an oil importer as their oil output has declined: http://www.energybulletin.net/5320.html

Mexico's largest oil field has gone into decline: http://www.latinpetroleum.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=17&num=3572&printer=1

Iraq's oil exports are still below pre-war levels as insurgents continue to blow up pipelines: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2005-10-10-iraq-oil-usat_x.htm

A global oil shortage would damage foreign markets the US depends on for the sale of exported goods. A global recession, or even a localized Asian recession, would seriously damage the US economy even if we are able to maintain affordable fuel here using our oil reserves.

And as you said in your previous post above, "They really live in the middle ages for the most part." The rulers in power will maintain their wealth, and the poor will continue to be poor. A lack of income for Iran will do less damage to them precisely because much of the population is poor: they have far less to lose than we do.

[Dave Reynolds]

20. US strategic reserves are not for "us",

if I remember correctly the bulk of that would go to the military and defense concerns. The average citizen will still be paying big, and facing shortages.

[Zynx]

32. It doesn't matter. Oil markets function off total global supply.

If Iran goes offline, we still face higher prices as others will bid higher for the oil we get now from other sources. Sure, Iran's economy will be damaged severely, but they know that we are unwilling to take the economic hit ourselves. I think that if they have some good advisors to their president they will figure out they can call our bluff.

[oblivious]

9. I thought this had to be wrong, but it's true.

"Iran's vulnerability is its gasoline imports," said James Placke, senior associate with Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a former U.S. diplomat.

According to the EIA, Iran in 2005 imported about 170,000 bpd, or about a third of its gasoline supplies.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_12414.shtml

[Inland]

23. I suspect the imports are due to excess capacity in the west

over the past ten or twenty years. Refineries may be working cheap now, and Iran might be able to dust off a couple of refineries and crank up capacity pretty quickly. At any rate, it's can't be that big a deal.

[GalleryGod]

10. Hmmm?

[NorthernSpy]

12. coals to Newcastle...

Well, I suppose that the Iranians could just build some refineries and start producing their own gasoline. It's not as though they were short on oil.

So Bayh is essentially threatening to nudge Iran toward the path of true autonomy. The likely outcome of that is ultimately less leverage for the West -- not more.

:think:

The best way to persuade Iran not to go nuclear would be to convince them that they don't need nukes, and that building them would be a complete waste of precious resources. But our current behavior in the region will make it mighty hard to make such a case, I'm afraid.

[Trillo]

13. Isn't banishment an old testament tribal technique?

Control versus Freedom.

[Mithras61]

18. I know!

Let's cut off one of their primary sources of energy so they won't look to nuclear reactors/power to replace it! :sarcasm:

Hey, it makes sense to me! <NOT!> I don't KNOW that Iran is really making nuclear weapons. I DO know that you need enriched uranium to run a nuclear reactor (just like you would need it to make a bomb), so stating that the only reason they're working on enriching uranium is to make the bomb is fairly weak (unless you have other evidence that you aren't sharing to support your opinion). Iranian leadership has stated that they want nuclear power to replace some of the aging energy infrastructure that they have that isn't meeting their needs for electricity.

I guess we can't believe that because everyone knows "all arabs lie," right? <more :sarcasm:>

[HuffleClaw]

19. isn't that like threatening to stop ice shipments to alaska?

really, what buffoonery is this? an election year ploy is my guess.

[MisterP]

24. it rubs the embargo on its skin or else it gets the bomb again

[knight_of_the_star]

25. Wow, what a statement

Seriously, what would ceasing gasoline exports to a net exporter of petroleum products do?

[Inland]

27. Make them build refineries and sell us gasoline, too.

That'll teach them.

[0007]

28. Where do we get these asswipes?

[IDemo]

30. The impact of Iranian oil on the US or on the global market isn't the

important thing, although it would probably make an impact. What ShrubCo and the PNAC fear much more than the nightmarish spectre of Suburban-driving Americans paying $6.25/gallon is the economic havoc which would result from Iran's plan to facilitate the purchase of oil in euros instead of dollars.

http://www.energybulletin.net/12125.html

[oblivious]

33. It seems this would be an enormous favour to the Iranian govenment.

It seems the government heavily subsidises gasoline, even though it imports a lot of it. The govt would like to cut imports or stop them althogether because people are trucking the subsidised gas across the border into neighbouring countries where they can sell it for up to ten times as much. But it doesn't dare.

So an embargo would allow the Iranian govt to jack up the prices and legitimately blame it on the US and Europe.

http://www.iran-daily.com/1383/2165/html/focus.htm

:rofl:

Vicious Fuel Cycle
A million liters a day also slips across Iran's borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey and to some Persian Gulf states, where a liter costs about a dollar.

Meanwhile, hundreds of pick-up trucks carrying 20 jerricans -- each containing 20 liters -- leave each day from Southeast Iran for Afghanistan, where a liter is worth nine times more at 4,500 rials.
To the west, buses and trucks crossing to Turkey are often equipped with a second tank, the contents of which are sold on the other side of the border.

...The International Monetary Fund has observed that Iran's fuel subsidies cost the country the equivalent of 10 percent of GDP each year.

Iran: Don't Halt Gasoline Imports
http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20051214044718