Want Lower Gas Prices? Lift AIPAC's Sanctions on Iran

Senator McCain, President Bush, and some of their oil industry friends are urging Americans to support overturning a 26-year ban on offshore drilling as a way to bring down gas prices. Of course, it's snake oil designed for what the Joe Lieberman campaign affectionately called "low information voters."

As Dean Baker and Nichole Szembrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted in a June 2008 paper ,

the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects that Senator McCain's proposal would have no impact in the near-term since it will be close to a decade before the first oil can be extracted from the currently protected offshore areas. The EIA projects that production will reach 200,000 barrels a day (0.2 percent of projected world production) at peak production in close to twenty years. It describes this amount as too small to have any significant effect on oil prices.

In contrast, if the United States had continued raising auto fuel efficiency standards annually between 1985-2005 by a quarter of the amount it raised them annually from 1980-1985 -- instead of leaving them virtually unchanged -- the result would have roughly been the equivalent of 3.3 million barrels of oil per day in new production in 2008 -- 16 times the impact of McCain's Offshore Drilling [MOD], CEPR reports.

What about the impact of lifting sanctions on Iran?

"Sanctions are pushing up the cost of oil," notes Juan Cole in a recent piece on Salon.
I asked Cole what his estimate of the scale of this effect was. If Iran could have expanded production of oil from 4 million barrels a day in the late 1990s to 6 million barrels a day today, that would be an extra 2 million barrels a day, i.e. 88 million barrels a day globally instead of 86, Cole says.

I asked Dean Baker of CEPR what could be the impact of lifting sanctions on Iran, and he wrote:

"Suppose they open up to foreign investment and production goes up 1-2 million barrels a day after a few years...It's 5 to 10 times McCain's offshore drilling."

So, summarizing in a table, using MOD ["McCain's Offshore Drilling"] as our "numeraire," as the economists say, we have the following:

Modest Conservation: 16 MOD
Lift Sanctions on Iran: 5-10 MOD
McCain's Offshore Drilling: 1 MOD

Now, some would surely argue that simply lifting sanctions on Iran is not politically feasible, because there is currently a "Washington Consensus" for sanctions on Iran supported by groups like AIPAC, linked to its nuclear program, relations with Iraq, Hamas, Hizbollah, etc.

Let's concede for the sake of discussion that that is true. What about the lifting of sanctions in the context of a real, negotiated deal with Iran? Would such a deal be more likely if Americans realized that the likely effect of such a deal would include an increase in world oil production roughly equivalent to 5-10 MODs?

Consider the following.

First, insofar as the sanctions were aimed at stopping Iran from having a nuclear program, or having relations with Iraq, Hamas, or Hizbollah that the US doesn't like, they have obviously not achieved their goals. If sanctions are expanded, (for example, by trying to ban Iran's gas imports, through what effectively amounts to an international blockade, as AIPAC has proposed) then they will drive up the price of oil still further, and it seems unlikely that the U.S. will be able to get Russia and China and Germany to agree to expand the sanctions to the degree necessary to achieve any of those goals.

Second, a key reason that the U.S. can't win support for the effective expansion of sanctions is that current U.S. policies are based on goals that are not widely seen internationally as legitimate. It's one thing to say you don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons. For that goal there is widespread international support (including -- according to their repeated public statements -- all the leaders of Iran, and the majority of Iranian public opinion.) But the current U.S. goal is to prevent Iran from having any nuclear program at all that involves the enrichment of uranium, and that goal has weak international support.

Suppose the U.S. changed its goals with respect to Iran to make them more realistic. Suppose, for example, that instead of trying to ban enrichment of uranium in Iran entirely -- a nonstarter for the overwhelming majority of Iranian public opinion -- the US were to seek to put Iran's uranium enrichment program under full international control, as Ambassador Pickering has proposed.

Suppose that instead of the unrealistic goals of demanding that Iran not "support" allies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, the US sought Iran's agreement to support its allies only politically and financially, and for Iran to use its influence with its allies to diminish violence and promote national reconciliation in these countries, as Iran has offered to do in the past and indeed has already done in Iraq and Lebanon. Suppose that, as seems quite plausible, as a result of this shift in U.S. policy the U.S. was able to get a deal with Iran, and lift the sanctions.

Should not the fact that such a policy could bring the benefit of 5-10 MODs be part of our debate over policy towards Iran? Would Americans tolerate that AIPAC dictate US policy towards Iran if they realized that it was costing them every time they went to the pump?

Here's a first step: don't let AIPAC drive up gas prices even more. Ask Congress to reject AIPAC's resolution seeking to ban Iran's gas imports.

Ambassador Pickering calls for talks with Iran without preconditions and advocates for a multinational uranium enrichment consortium in Iran.

Comments

[mexobserver]

Call them Jewish neo-conservatives or AIPAC, the core issue here is neither the policies nor the politics of the U.S.A., a sovereign nation, should be influenced to such an absurd and formidable extent by what AIPAC says and how AIPAC acts. Moreover, AIPAC does not even represent the interests of the majority of Jews living in Israel, only the most right-wing side, bent on belligerence toward the rest of the Middle East to the extent they even justify committing ethnic cleansing at Gaza and the West Bank. I wonder if AIPAC has become another branch of the U.S. government, on an equal level with the Executive, the Judicial and the Legislature? (As for the Christian right assessment that Israel is essential for its triumph, that's interesting, but shouldn't even be taken as valid, and yet I know a fair number of people thinks so.) From the outside, the viewer's opinion is easy to take. USAmericans, stop allowing AIPAC to jerk around your government. And be informed. Under IAEA rules uranium enrichment is legal and allowed, so going to war or conditioning diplomatic engagement to that fact is ludicrous. However the Cheney/Bush/AIPAC clique take advantage of the USAmerican public's ignorance. You don't have to be an expert in polls or in economy to clearly see peaceful diplomatic engagement with Iran is in USAmericans' best interest, one that will be felt with gratitude at gas stations, to speak only of a prosaic motivation.

[Soosan a disgusted American]

Talking about a well oiled machine of Jewish lobbyist, leadership of AIPAC, & its influence in Capitol Hill add to it the biased journalism, and the garbage the Americans are fed from mass media you have a deadly concoction of regurgitated information! The month of August is remembered not for the Roman emperor, but for its 6th day when Harry Truman dropped the first atomic bomb on innocent Japanese people, a never disputed fact. Hitler killed innocent Jews, a fact that is protected by legal apparatus where no one is allowed to question it! Nonetheless, unless you believe the sanctity of life is preserved ONLY for innocent Jews, both Hitler and Truman are war criminals. But you know how the quasi reality panned out! Time has changed, Bush could not escape the verdict of public opinion as Truman did. Yet, the propaganda business did not go bankrupt, the main reason for hate/ fear mongering that are manufactured/spread around the world ubiquitously. Israel is the core of this apparatus. Israel was not created as just another country after the collapse of Ottoman empire, but as an apartheid imposed on Jews, Christians, and Muslims who coexisted in a relatively peace environment for centuries.
Even a pro Western Shah of Iran did not hesitate to warn the U.S. of Israeli lobby.It was Mike Wallace who refined...­........co­ntinued

[Soosan a disgusted American]

........his interview with Shah of Iran to make him look bad to his masters. Then, the Islamic Republic of Iran continued more or less the same path with Israel. Wallace, again refined his interview with Ahmadinejad to originate a new bed of lies for hate and fear mongering machine, and sadly he was rewarded with an Emmy Award!

Please watch this video clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onNzrNEFs1E

In Wallace's Interview with Shah of Iran (30 years ago) you can see the same coward attitude, and biased reporting. After all what do we expect from power hungry, has been, like Mike Wallace. Unfortunately the baton has been passed to his even less charismatic son Chris Wallace who reports on Faux Noise even more biased media outlet courtesy of Rupert Murdock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kySR3fpa5s&NR=1

[SaintMTraveler]

Jewish Neoconservative and the American Foreign Policy in the Middle East: Iran

Do American people have any understanding about the negative influence of Jewish neoconservatives on the US foreign policy? The neoconservatives have followed Israel and in some cases have initiated the negative perception among about the Muslim world, specifically Iran.

This negative influence has resulted of wasted 30 years in not having an effective diplomatic interaction with Iran. Our policy had been to sabotage diplomacy by under cutting the actions of Javier Solana.

We had build up the expectations before the meeting that mere presence of Burns would stop Iranian producing nuclear fuel; we completely ignored the diplomatic rule of engagement and expected an instant result. Before we could be effective in our interactions with Iran, we would need to have an understanding of their interests and positions, fears and expectations. To start we would need to know what Iran wants.
What does Iran Want?
Before drawing a red line with Iran, we must be clear about our own motivations and the expected outcomes.

We have multiple options in our relationships with Iran. Among these is the continuation of the present status, or a robust start of diplomatic interaction. Let us use diplomatic rules of engagement and talk with Iran. However; Israel similar to the past 45 years, has been a negative influence in our relationship with Iran. Iran had suffered in her interaction with US due to the negative influence of Israel and her lobbies.

[bullieslovewar]

Neoconservatives with dual citizenships influence US foreign policies. Richard Perle supported lying us into Iraq. Now 5,000 dead in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few people headed by Osama bin-Laden attacked on 9-11 because they detested the brutal Palestinian occupation. No country declared war on us. Afghanistan is very poor.
Bush knew little about Arab or Iranian world. Ahmedinejad did not call for destruction of Israel or the U.S. but that Zionism was wrong. It 's bigoted and racist. and has no place in America. Get-rich-quick televangelists use it to dupe people. Special interest bribe money should be banned. Our politicians are paid well, have perks they sell their souls to keep. One politician took $250,000 in home improvements from an oil company.

Inhumane sanctions keep us from drilling off the coast of Cuba. We placed them on iraq for 11 years and they lacked lacked water, hospital and school upplies - why destroy a beautiful secular country, churches, mosques, synagogues, good schools, hospitals, women drove, voted, dressed western, now wear the hijab. Millions fled to Syria and Jordan, thousands died. Palestinian children in wretched concentration camps familes were forced into spoke better English than Bush.

Israel, nuclear armed, does not need our money. We pay Egypt and Jordan to keep quiet. A M.E. nuclear Goliath threatens its neighbors, world peace and security.
War is the lowest form of human behaviour." Diplomacy, not cowboy bully rhetoric. Our children and grandchildren deserve better.

[Hass]

The irony, of course, is that according to the GAO, the sanctions aren't actually accomplishing much on Iran (and are probably counter-productive by making it harder for the people to overthrow the regime)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011603711.html

[Hass]

The irony, of course, is that according to the GAO, the sanctions aren't actually accomplishing much on Iran (and are probably counter-productive by making it harder for the people to overthrow the regime)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011603711.html

[alimostofi]

the author states:

a nonstarter for the overwhelming majority of Iranian public opinion

The Iranian people do not support any of the Seyyeds' activities in Iran. It is the Iranian people who reported their secret nuclear activities.

[Robert Naiman - Huffpost Blogger]

In April, the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland published a poll of Iranian public opinion. PIPA found that 81% of Iranians consider it "very important" for "Iran to have a full-fuel-cycle nuclear program" which would give Iran the capacity to produce nuclear fuel for energy production. Four out of five. Only 5% think Iran should not pursue a full-fuel-cycle program.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/469.php

[gorbe]

Dear Robert,
I would look at the PIPA report with a grain of salt. Such public opinion polls are not common in Iran and people (google Abbas Abdi) have gone to jail if the polls indicate results which are not in line with government’s views. The same PIPA poll also gave the government an approval rating close to 80% which is quite questionable. Remember that 20-30% of Iranians are illiterate and would know nothing about nuclear energy let alone uranium enrichment. I just came back from a trip to Iran and saw no public interest in pursing nuclear enrichment after all the economic sanctions. Even Iranian leadership, despite their rhetoric, will suspend the enrichment if US gives them a guarantee not to pursue a regime change in Iran.

[AdamWykle]

Umm, why isn't this on the top of Huffington Post?

Great post, Naiman. AIPAC should be tried for treason and shut down, they do not look out for Americans but for a foreign entity.

[Robert Naiman - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate the praise, but I strongly disagree that "AIPAC should be tried for treason and shut down." As US citizens, they have every right to advocate their views, just as we do. Even if they were to be treated under the law as agents of a foreign government - for which there is a plausible case, but the law here is murky, and it's far from obvious that it would be in the public interest to apply it more strictly - that would not prevent them from advocating their views. Foreign governments have lobbyists in Washington, that's not illegal.

The problem is not the existence of AIPAC. The problem is the degree to which politicians follow AIPAC's lead, regardless of the consequences of their policies for the interests of the majority; and the degree to which the majority, having different interests, fails to do effectively exactly that which AIPAC does, advocate with policymakers on behalf of their interests.

As Cassius said: "the fault is not with our stars, but with ourselves, that we are underlings."

[cunuck]

Do you believe that the leadership of AIPAC reflects the wishes and desires of the US Jewish community it serves?