Round and round we go with Carter II’s foreign policy:
Frustrated by Iran’s continued defiance of demands to come clean on its nuclear program, the Obama administration is leaning toward imposing new sanctions, even if it must act alone.
Administration officials acknowledged growing concern that there may not be international consensus to expand the existing U.N. sanctions, despite Tehran’s apparent rejection of a confidence-building measure proposed by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog in hopes of making progress on the nuclear issue.
To that end, the administration is quietly supporting legislation in Congress that would give President Barack Obama a broad new array of authority to target Iran’s energy sector by penalizing foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. The regime is heavily dependent on gasoline, kerosene and propane imports.
Uh, Barry, old buddy – you don’t need to dither around waiting for Congress…you can just tell the Iranians that if they don’t cave by, say, November 10th, we’ll send the US Navy to intercept all gasoline tankers headed towards Iran. Trust me on this one: Iran will at least sit down for some serious discussions.
Now, to be sure, they will try to roll you – they’ve taken your measure and see you as a weak man. Threatening blockade will take them off guard, but they’ll also be thinking that they can get you to back down once they throw some sweet words your way. That is why your words will have to be backed up with major ship movements towards the area.
They don’t want to fight us directly – they are building a nuclear program so that they can hide behind nukes and fight us via proxies without a worry of direct retaliation. They will back down if they believe the choice is war or submission. Do keep in mind, of course, that even if they back down they’ll still be dishonest and keep as much of their nuke program as they can…but you can slow them down for years, and in years a lot of things might change, including a revolution (and it’d be nice if you’d say a kind word or two about the Iranian dissidents, ya know?).
But if you go this route of endless jawing and waiting for this, that and the other thing to happen, then you’ll have no credibility and the Iranians will eventually laugh at your threats…which might put us in the difficult position of either backing down, or going to war. Much better if we make them dance to our tune.
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