Rattlesnake Ridge 
BFF
“But will an oil embargo work? Not as far as oil analyst Paul Stevens of London-based Chatham House is concerned. “If you look at history, oil embargoes have never, ever worked and never, ever been effective…so it’s not going to work,” he said. “It’s just going to cause a great deal of disruption.” Stevens says EU countries that depend on Iranian oil can find new suppliers – like the Gulf states. But Iran may also find new buyers for its oil in Asia. Iranian officials have downplayed the impact of Western measures – including new U.S. sanctions that could reduce Iran’s ability to sell oil and other exports. But Tehran also has threatened to close the critically important Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf………… For his part, Stevens of Chatham House doubts Iran will go through with its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz – in part because it relies on the waterway for its own oil exports. But he believes the deepening standoff between Tehran and Washington, in particular, is creating a dangerously unstable situation. “By trying to limit Iran’s oil exports, it [Washington] is essentially escalating the situation into what could very rapidly become a crisis,“………”
Every time Mr. Netanyahu threatens to wage his own war, Western powers (mainly the Obama administration) panic and tighten their sanctions, really a blockade, against Iran. It is Mr. Netanyahu, a supreme hustler if there ever was one, who calls the shots for the West over many things Middle Eastern, from Palestine to Iran. He exercises his veto power over the two branches of the American government. He has a direct route (hotline) to the leadership of the Congress, which is willing to kiss his posterior in a way he would never dream the Israeli Knesset ever would. He would never get a standing ovation in the original Knesset in Jerusalem. He is fawned upon so much by the American right (and some on the left) it is a wonder he doesn’t immigrate back to the USA and run for office in Georgia or Alabama or Tara.
Boycotts and sanctions rarely work, they never worked against Cuba (been over fifty years) or Iraq (led to an invasion). They do hurt the people. The Cuban boycott caused economic hardships, and the misery it caused only pushed many thousands of Cubans to leave their homeland and cross to Miami. It gave many U.S. administrations the alibi to blame Cuban misery completely on the Castro regime (the Castro regime was partly responsible for erecting inflexible out-dated Soviet-style institutions and stifling dissent). The Cuban boycott has no justification anymore. It has been sustained for decades only by one political pressure group in the United States and can be summarized by a seven-letter word: FLORIDA.
The Iranian boycott is even tougher than the Cuban one, it is nearly a blockade by all Western powers that could lead to a war. Yet it is also unlikely to work against Iran: the theocratic regime in Tehran is as confident of being on the right, as committed to not buckle in the face of foreign threats, as Castro was for so many decades. They are as ideologically stubborn, albeit at a stiff economic cost to their people. Besides, they have something the communist Castro has never had since at least July of 1956: they believe divinity (G-O-D) is with them, although I am not sure about h-i-s-t-o-r-y.
Then there are the petroleum and the gas fields. They possibly have the world’s second largest petroleum reserves and possibly the world’s largest gas reserves. Meaning they feel they can outwit and out-wait the West and its blockade. Besides, the way the petroleum markets work makes it hard to distinguish Iranian or Angolan petroleum: there will always be demand for Iranian crude and gas, probably at discounted prices. Both have been mainly sellers’ markets for some time, as countries try to secure sources of supply.
Cheers
mhg
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