The Oil Drum

50 years and nobody's learned anything.  Embargos only hurt people.  They never "hurt" countries, they just keep the people poor and waiting to die.  Governments still build their nukes, their antiaircraft missile systems, torture their enemies and build any type of WMD they want to (or not).  Do you think that making embargos fosters peace and a good image from the world's perspective?  Besides, embargos are not an effective threat against countries that don't buy much on the world markets anyway.  But from somebody living in the US, I can see how you cannot fathom the idea that anyone can survive an embargo.  The US can't exist for more than 1.2 months without oil imports.  SPR?  Nooooo!  The Strategic Petroleum Reserve only holds enough for about 15-25 days of supply.  How long has Cuba resisted the American embargo?  50 years?  55 years?  Why not try maintaining it for another 100 years?  Do you think they will throw in the towel any time soon?  And Cuba?; they don't have any oil at all, yet they still manage to kick US butt at every opportunity just by continue to hang on and hang on and hang on.  By ratioing out Cubas "embargo resistability factor", keeping in mind that it is the size of Penn, GDP/capita $3000 to a country like Iran, the size of Alaska, GDP/cap 7700, with a #3 or so world oil producing status, world current account ranking #36 (US is #149 lowest on the list http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html) how long do you think could Iran hold out?  100 years, 200 years? 500 years?  Certainly long enough to build a nuke and push the button.  Like they have to build a nuke.  All they really gotta' do to grab the world's cajones is simply put a couple of Exocetes on a few rubber boats to control more than 1/2 of all the world's oil shippments. So tell me why they want to build nukes?  Did anyone ever think that just maybe they want to make electricity like everyone else in the world has the right to do?  Who says they don't have the right to build nukes if they want to?  Did they sign the NNT?  Why can't they be like and Pakistan and India and France, and England and China and Russia and South Africa and Israel .... Hey guys, tell you a secret, "The cat is already out of the bag!"  

Now we talk US Embargo?  So says another totally brilliant wannabe American foreign policy maker.  OMG I'm sure Condi must have a better idea than that, although I'll only give you 1:1 odds.  

Ostriches! Heads... UP!