Drink Up, Iran

Have you noticed the sudden abundance of those little lozenge-shaped cars with the stickers on the bumper that says something like: ‘Energy Saver”? .Yeah, me too.

Within one year of insane oil prices up nearly 40% brought on by instability in the middle east and orchestration by the multi-national oil companies, many consumers are reacting by dumping their rolling land yachts in favor of the new fuel-miserly vehicles offered suspiciously close on the heels of said inflated fuel prices.

That issue not withstanding, I’d like to buy one of these cars as more of a big third-finger to Iran and our Saudi 'allies in the war on terror'---(Thanks, George).

The lunatic-in-charge of the perpetually bellicose fiefdom of Iran now thinks the number four oil producer has us over a (55 gallon) barrel. Believing that Americans would sooner tolerate a nuclear tipped Iran than they would lines at the pump, Ahmadinejad is now threatening to significantly reduce oil exports to the U.S., (but not to France of course), or launch an outright embargo, reminiscent of the 1970’s if we don’t stop our girly whining about Iran’s ‘civilian purposes only’ nuclear program. After all, Ahmadinejad tells us, Iran needs the electricity generated by these reactors. The ocean of petroleum that Iran floats on just isn’t enough to keep Iran’s automotive and aircraft factories running, it’s ship-building concerns humming along, or its heavy industry churning out oil rigs, ships, or even military hardware such as tanks and submarines.

Just because you’ve never heard of Iran actually engaging in any of those energy-intensive industries doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It only means that Iranian-made cars, jets and 200,000-ton ships are reserved for non-infidels.

Oh, wait. Just before Achmed-a-whatever sputtered out the threat of embargo, he also postulated that "Israel should be wiped off the map", and not even thirty days prior claimed ‘Israel will be removed’.

So let’s review. If we (the U.S. and various but not all European countries) refuse to allow Iran to develop thermo-nuclear weapons changing for the worse the entire Middle East by ‘wiping Israel off the map’….we don’t get to drive our Suburbans to soccer practice, fuel prices will skyrocket again, and we’ll have less discretionary income to purchase cheap Chinese products. By the way, does the looming Iranian oil embargo apply to China, our trading partner that now enjoys most-favored nation status?

But the threats are not isolated to Israel. Iran not only thinks America will cower at the threat of price spikes or shortages, it thinks we will shrink from direct confrontation: (from the UK Telegraph in August 2004)….” Iran warned America and Israel last night that it was ready to launch pre-emptive strikes to stop them attacking its nuclear facilities.”…..” Ali Shamkhani, the Iranian defence minister, said the presence of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was not a threat to Teheran. On the contrary, American soldiers were now "hostages" to Iran”. 1979 taught us that Iran is quite adroit at middle eastern style diplomacy: hostage taking.

But short of all-out nuclear combat with Israel and our forces in Iraq, Iran’s tenuous grasp on regional influence stems from the viscous treasure beneath its arid soil. Without oil sales, there’s no money for nukes with which to blackmail its way onto the world stage. No money to pay Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas. No nukes, and Iran remains the post-1980 cultural throwback it has become.

So the question that we all knew would one day demand an answer is: who needs whom more?

Surely we need oil. Iran is the number four OPEC producer. Yet whose economy is in fact stronger? America leads the world in technology. Leading technology that includes the know-how in oil exploration, development, extraction and distribution. America feeds much of the world. Smokestack industries, though diminished by Asian competition still surpasses Iran’s by many decades. As proof, were the U.S. to in fact strike Iran, Iran’s air defense consists largely of aircraft purchased by the Shah in the 1970’s. We would be shooting down broken down F-14’s flown by Iranians with no training.

So Iranians sympathetic to their madman leaders rhetoric had better learn to embrace a diet rich in hydrocarbons, because while Americans have enjoyed the black gold for a while now, Iranians assume far too much about a supposed lack of American resolve.

Oh, and one last question for Tehran:
If the nuclear facilities now under construction are for 'civilian purposes of a peaceful nature only", why are they underground?