Drumbeats of War - Gasoline, Oil, Nukes and Wind
Gasoline
If the Iranian official news is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth… and what official source does… Iran is now self sufficient in the production of gasoline. They say Iran has increased production from 11.6 million gallons to 17.4 million gallons per day.
Iranian sources say Iran is currently using 15 million gallons of gasoline per day. The 2007 figures from non-Iranian sources were about 21 million per day. But everyone agrees Iran has made a strong effort to cut the amount used. Non-Iranian sources say they are down 12 percent or more, which would be under 18.5 million gallons per day
That’s pretty close to self-sufficient, if the current figures are truthful, and again, who knows if they are.
But even if they’re fudging the figures, I think the amount of support from China and other nations would make it easy for them to meet their daily gasoline supply needs.
That means the sanctions targeting gasoline have failed totally and permanently… unless there is a big event of some sort, like a few Iranian refineries blowing up or something.
The only card that has not been played in this sanctions game is naval interdiction of gasoline or other ‘contraband’ coming into Iran by ship. I’m not sure that card is still in the deck. But if it is, it would lead to war as soon as the Iranians boarded a US ship in retaliation.
Oil
Whether or not Iran has achieved self-sufficiency, Japan’s announcement Saturday that they had come to a decision to increase sanctions against Iran may have some serious consequences.
Finally acceding to US pressure, Japan suspended new oil and gas investments and froze assets of certain organizations and individuals.
Official Iranian news media reported a Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson saying that ‘any country that imposes sanctions on Iran will create problems for their companies, waste their national interests and pass on business opportunities to their rivals.’
That could mean a significant economic jolt to Iran, since Japan relies on Iran for a significant portion of their oil.
Most current historians say that the Japan-America part of the Pacific War during World War II was a direct result of the US keeping Japan from getting enough oil for their needs. Of course it is different now. Japan is on our side.
Nukes
According to Israeli sources, Iran is taking full advantage of the supposed safety of the area around their Bushehr reactor. Now that it is being fueled with tons of enriched uranium, everyone knows that it can’t be blown up without spreading a lot of radioactivity around. Since it it near the Persian Gulf, no one would want the major route for the world’s shipped oil to be contaminated.
So they are moving their secret nuclear weapons research, and a whole lot of sophisticated missiles and other weaponry, to huge storage facilities at Bushehr that the Russians built during the construction phase.
I don’t want to rain on the parade, but I wonder if Israel cares about a radioactive plume from the remains of Bushehr drifting east over Iran? Wouldn’t that just take some wind from the west at the time of an airstrike? The wind does sometimes blow eastward from Bushehr. I checked it out on Weather Wunderground.
Iran has threatened to blow up the Israeli reactor at Dimona in the Negev, if Israel ever attacks them. Clearly, they are not worried about a radioactive plume drifting over Israel.
In related news, the International Atomic Energy Agency is saying Iran has enough enriched uranium for maybe 3 nuclear weapons. They say it’s enriched to the point where bringing it to weapons grade is ‘relatively easy’. This on top of saying Iran has barred some of its inspectors and is not letting the IAEA do what it needs to do to make sure weapons are not being produced.
Iran denies it has ever done anything wrong.
Wind
Are the promises of the United States to not force the settlement of issues in the Israel-Palestinian peace talks simply hot air? Or is Palestinian leader Abbas full of it?
It’s one or the other, because Lebanese news sources report that Abbas has cried to the US to make israel continue the freeze on settlement construction, or he’ll go home. Further, he says the US promised him that they would do so, before the talks started.
Direct US meddling in the peace process is anathema to the Israelis. If Abbas is telling the truth… and a lot of news sources said this would happen even before the talks started… continuing the peace talks would be worse than useless.
Of course, as earlier posts have mentioned, both sides were pretty much slated to walk out because of the intractable settlement construction issue anyway. So none of this is surprising. The surprise would be if someone comes up with a way around it that both the Israelis and Palestinians would accept. Including Hamas.
Wind 2
Speaking of wind, there seems to be a lessening of hot air between North and South Korea, who have been threatening war against each other for months. That’s a good thing.
According to Iranian sources, NK said Monday that they would release the fishing boat and crew it seized several weeks ago. The release was called a ‘humanitarian gesture’.
Totally unrelated, of course, NK also asked SK for food, cement, and some other things. Sources say that the SK Red Cross had previously offered over 8 million dollars worth of food and other aid, and now NK will happily accept the offer.
So they are making nice, and haven’t threatened to nuke each other for at least two days.
What this may really mean is that NK is in desperate need of food and other things.
I’m not sure that is a positive factor for peace in the long term.
