“In the second year of his presidency, Trump had blown up the Iran nuclear deal that Obama had a hand in fashioning, letting us all think it was because he was trying to erase Obama’s legacy. But the real and immediate impact of Trump’s decision was to
pull almost 3 million barrels of Iranian oil a day off the world market, boosting profits for Russia, Saudi Arabia and the US fossil fuel industry……Which brings us to today, with oil prices soaring. When President Biden tried to reach out to our allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to ask them to restore the production they’d cut under threat from Trump, both refused to take his call, according to press reports.”
Your analysis is too simplistic and doesn't take into account the real reasons behind pulling out of the nuclear deal. It was a horrendously bad deal in the first place.
Obama’s “wishful thinking” about the region was never more fully on display than when he speculated that his nuclear agreement with Tehran ought to allow the Iranians and the Saudis time to learn “to share” the region; it has, of course, done the opposite. The agreement—and the Iranian perception of that accord as a Western green light for its continuing aggression—has thrown jet fuel on the sectarian strife that Iran’s clerical regime has so malevolently encouraged. The Syrian war went from bad to catastrophic while Obama was engaged in his secret and then open diplomacy with Tehran. Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and most probably Turkey, too—the only Muslim power in the Middle East that has the industrial capacity to check Iran’s clerical regime—started down the nuclear path because of Obama’s accord.
Obama provided the agreement that Ali Akbar Salehi was searching for. Salehi, the MIT-educated nuclear guru and negotiator who would be better described as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s bomb maker, sought the time and money to perfect the development of high-velocity centrifuges which, once deployed in small, easily concealed cascades, will guarantee the Islamic Republic an unstoppable means to produce weapons-grade uranium.
The main underlying failure is that you do not recognize that the removal of US sanctions, which were put in place by Trump, will not stabilize the Middle East at all. To open up the global financial sector and commodity markets to Iran will be a major mistake, as it gives the extremist regime a new lease on life, while hydrocarbon revenues will be pushed not only into the Iranian economy but also to military procurement, development of ballistic missile systems, drones, and the financing of Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen. The financial gains of the Iranian government will not lead to a push for democratization or strengthen the public interests of Iranians.
The obvious reason, which you believe, for appeasing Iran is to bring additional volumes of crude oil, condensates, and natural gas onto the market. The optimism about Iran’s capabilities in regards to this, however, is misplaced. There will be no Tsunami of new Iranian oil hitting the market. Even under US sanctions, Iran has been exporting vast volumes, almost all heading to Asian clients, such as China. To expect an additional 1-2 million bpd of Iranian oil, partly to counter the possible removal of Russian Urals under sanctions, is completely unrealistic. The vast floating storage volumes, as has been reported by some already, are not the products, crude, or quality the market will be looking for.
To sacrifice security worldwide, to expand Iran’s power projections in the Middle East, and to increase the power of Raisi is the cost of a nuclear deal right now. The benefit of such a deal would likely be a short-lived 1 percent boost in the global oil supply. Western politicians and leaders are known for their short-term visions, but Ukraine is an example of how other players on the world stage appear to be considering much longer timelines. Short-term gains of around $8 per barrel are expected, but this price increase could lead to a much higher mid-term price spike if the Middle East, already facing the prospect of food shortages, is destabilized by a revived Iranian regime.
www.wsj.com
www.epi.org
