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Iran Gas Ban: Step Toward War With
Iran?
The Epoch Times
As the Obama administration struggles to devise a strategy for dealing
with Iran's intransigence on the uranium enrichment issue, it appears to
be gravitating toward the imposition of an international embargo on
gasoline sales to that country. Such a ban would be enacted if Iranian
officials fail to come up with an acceptable negotiating plan by the
time the UN General Assembly meets in late September—the deadline given
by the White House for a constructive Iranian move.
| And once shots are fired,
under whatever circumstances, it could prove difficult to avoid
escalation to more robust military means, leading to the war
scenario the embargo was intended to avert. |
Iran, of course, is a major oil producer, pumping out some 4.3
million barrels per day in 2008. But it is also a major petroleum
consumer. And its oil industry has a significant structural weakness:
Its refinery capacity is too constricted to satisfy the nation's
gasoline requirements. As a result, Iran must import about 40 percent of
its refined products. Government officials are attempting to reduce this
dependency through rationing and other measures, but the country remains
highly vulnerable to any cutoff in gasoline imports.
Many in Washington view Iran's vulnerability as an opportunity to coerce
the country into abandoning its nuclear-arms program. Although senior
Iranian officials deny that they are seeking nuclear munitions, many
Western analysts believe that the enrichment effort now under way at a
huge centrifuge facility in Natanz is intended to produce highly
enriched uranium for an eventual Iranian bomb. Despite massive pressure
from the United States and the European Union, Tehran has refused to
cease work at Natanz or to consider a slowdown there as part of a
negotiating process. If Iran persists on this course, proponents of a
gasoline embargo argue that sanctions should be the next step.
Instead of War?
Many prominent figures in the United States and Israel favor not
economic sanctions but military action if Tehran fails to cease its
uranium enrichment. As such, the administration is looking to take a
step that gives the impression of forceful action yet falls short of a
risky military engagement. Cutting off gasoline deliveries to Iran, it
is thought, could provide such an option. President Barack Obama himself
touted the appeal of such a move in the final presidential debate, on
October 15, 2008. "If we can prevent them from importing the gasoline
that they need, and the refined petroleum products, that starts changing
their cost-benefit analysis," he declared. "That starts putting the
squeeze on them."
Obama has not expressed a similar view since taking office, but many
around him are believed to favor this approach. Every action carries
grave risks, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) observed at a recent hearing on
the topic, "[but] I firmly believe...that using economic pressure is far
superior to the extreme alternatives of standing idly by as Iran goes
nuclear, or relying on a military strike, which could have grave
consequences and should be contemplated only as a last resort."
If Iran fails to come up with a constructive negotiating stance by the
time the UN General Assembly meets in September, the White House should
develop a playbook with options other than war. Attacking the centrifuge
facility at Natanz and other Iranian nuclear facilities might set back
the country's nuclear ambitions for a time, but it could also provoke a
wider conflict that would severely harm vital U.S. interests. Iran is
likely to respond to such an attack by attacking oil facilities and
tankers throughout the Persian Gulf area—driving oil prices sky-high
again—and sponsoring a fresh round of violent attacks by its proxies in
Iraq, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East. A unilateral U.S.
strike on Iran would also provoke the same sort of international
condemnation that greeted the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Having options short of war is, therefore, something to be greatly
desired. But one must ask: Would a ban on gasoline sales prove a step
toward peace, or a step toward war? That is, would it make armed
conflict less likely by forcing the Iranians to return to the bargaining
table in a more accommodating mood, or would it prove a stepping-stone
to military action?
No one can be absolutely sure about this, of course. But there are good
reasons to be skeptical about a gasoline ban's effectiveness in
promoting peace and cooperation.
Why It Might Not Work
To be effective, a gas ban would require the acquiescence of Russia,
China, India, and other key powers that are reluctant to impose harsh
sanctions on Iran. These countries conduct extensive trade with Iran and
are not likely to jeopardize their well-established position there by
complying with a U.S.-backed measure. China and Russia, with veto rights
at the Security Council, are unlikely to approve any UN measure that
entailed enforcement of a gasoline ban through a naval blockade in the
Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, an action essential to prevent cheating
and smuggling. With the tacit support of its business partners, the
Iranians could easily circumvent the embargo through various devious
means.
A U.S.-imposed embargo on refined products would also allow the
Ahmadinejad regime to initiate tougher gasoline rationing, raise energy
prices, and push through other unpopular economic moves—all in the name
of nationalism and anti-imperialism. Anyone who objected to such moves
would be branded as an ally or agent of the "Great Satan," the United
States.
Under these circumstances, the Iranians would not likely be more
inclined to negotiate away its enrichment program than it would absent
such a ban. If anything, the conservative mullahs who rule the country
may see it as a godsend—as a way of solidifying domestic support at time
when many young Iranians appear to be rejecting clerical domination.
On the other hand, a gasoline embargo might provoke the Iranians into
taking steps that would increase the risk of war, especially if the
United States employed military means to enforce the ban. For example,
they could encourage their allies in Iraq, such as the more militant
followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, to renew their attacks on American
soldiers in Baghdad and elsewhere. In recent months the Sadrists have
been relatively quiescent, preferring to engage in political rather than
military struggle. But they have hardly eschewed their capacity for
mischief, and, with the right prodding from Tehran, might again target
American personnel and their Iraqi partners, complicating the U.S.
withdrawal.
Leading to War?
More frightening scenarios could unfold if the United States and its
closest allies seek to enforce an embargo by establishing a naval
blockade in waters off Iran and stopping ships thought to be violating
the ban. Given the high likelihood of cheating, such a blockade would
probably be necessary for the embargo to prove effective. But such a
move could be considered an act of war, and might well invite
retaliation by Iran's Revolutionary Guard—which sports its own
small-ship navy.
An eerie preview of such a scenario occurred in January 2008, when five
Iranian speedboats approached several American warships in the Strait of
Hormuz and, according to some reports, threatened to blow them up. One
U.S. ship, the U.S.S. Hopper, was on the brink of opening fire on the
Iranian boats when they veered off, ending the engagement. It is easy to
imagine similar scenes—with less benign outcomes—repeating themselves,
in the event that American warships attempt to blockade Iranian
territory. And once shots are fired, under whatever circumstances, it
could prove difficult to avoid escalation to more robust military means,
leading to the war scenario the embargo was intended to avert.
That a ban on gasoline sales to Iran carries these potential downsides
is not a reason to abandon consideration of such a move. As suggested,
it is far better to be thinking of economic sanctions if Iran proves
intransigent in the months ahead than to opt automatically for military
action. But an oil embargo appears especially risky, both because it
would strengthen the hand of conservative clerics in Tehran and it could
entail a naval blockade, setting off a chain reaction of violent moves.
Administration officials should, therefore, scrutinize this option very
rigorously before it becomes the preferred response to an Iranian rebuff
in September.
Michael T. Klare is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, a professor
of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, and the
author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New
Geopolitics of Energy. Foreign Policy In Focus,
www.fpif.org.
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