Oil Tanker. Illustrative. Photo Courtesy of U.S. Navy. Photo by Mass Communication 2nd Class Nathan Schaeffer
Chances are your wallet has been happy with plunging oil prices that have taken gasoline prices to their lowest levels in years. But an archenemy of Israel and the US is claiming the price drop is a plot against them even as they try to argue it isn’t really hurting them.
The Justice Minister for Iran, an oil-rich nation whose economy is strongly supported by crude sales, said that Iran’s enemies engineered the oil price change after sanctions on Iran failed, according to the Fars News Agency. Iran is currently under heavy sanctions over their illegal nuclear program. The major world powers are negotiating a peaceful resolution to the nuclear dispute, amid fears Iran’s ultimate goal is to build nuclear weapons.
Fars quoted Mostafa Pourmohammad as claiming the oil price drop shows sanctions on Iran failed, because the declining crude numbers “incurs losses” on Iran’s enemies as well and so represents a desperate move by them.
In the same article, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Iranian foes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are hurt worse by the oil price drop, since their economies are more dependent on the fuel sales. It appears Rouhani believes those two nations are among those behind the “plot” to lower oil prices. Both Rouhani and Pourmohammad claimed Iran has economic alternatives to oil sales.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power praised the impact of sanctions, but stated that they don’t want to create new ones now due to their nuclear talks with Iran. “If new sanctions were imposed, Iran would be able to blame the United States for sabotaging the negotiations and causing the collapse of the process,” said Powers in recent comments released by her office.
However, she made it clear that Iran wasn’t off the hook for new sanctions forever.
“The moment we judge that the risks of negotiating exceed the benefits, and that Iran’s leaders are not prepared to do what is necessary – we will end the negotiations and work with Congress, as we always have, to apply more pressure.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, January 13, 2014)