The US Has Let Iran Do What It Wants Despite Oil Sanctions

The U.S. has relaxed its oversight of oil sanctions against Iran. Yet the clerical regime uses oil revenues to line its coffers and support Hamas.

It’s a number that should be impossible, but Iran is exporting more than 3 million barrels of oil a day, more than it has in five years. And this is happening despite the fact that the U.S. has been sanctioning Iranian oil exports since 2018 because the current U.S. administration has relaxed its enforcement of oil sanctions.

This is negligent in terms of foreign policy because Iran is filling its coffers with oil revenues while it simultaneously provides financial support to Hamas, the terrorist group currently committing atrocities against the Israelis.

At first glance, it might seem rational for the U.S. to take a more relaxed view of the Iranians evading sanctions given that the U.S. has sought to move closer to Iran diplomatically on the one hand, while rising Iranian oil exports on the other, exert a downward pressure on oil prices.

After all, the U.S. government desperately needs oil prices to fall after gas prices climbed in recent months. U.S. consumers, who rely heavily on their automobiles, are really feeling the pinch. Energy prices are also one of the key drivers of inflation. The public mood has grown more tense at an inopportune moment about a year out from the U.S. presidential election.

Yet the U.S. government is hard-pressed to do much about rising gas prices. The oil market has been under-supplied since Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by 1 million barrels a day in July. The desert kingdom is the largest oil-producing member of OPEC. The cartel of oil-exporting states strives to maximize its oil revenues, and it does this by controlling production volumes via specific quotas assigned to each of its members.

Although Iran belongs to OPEC, it is exempt from the quota regime on account of sanctions. U.S. sanctions – having effectively as much bite as a paper tiger – have enabled Iranian oil exports to increase substantially. And this, together with releases from strategic U.S. crude oil reserves, went some way toward offsetting reduced Saudi production volumes in September.

In short, by turning a blind eye to oil sanctions, the U.S. can, to some extent, avert further oil price hikes. However, improving its own citizens’ lot comes at the expense of Israeli citizens, whose security is destroyed by the Hamas terrorists whom Iran funds. This is not what solidarity looks like. The U.S. administration must now show some backbone and make its oil sanctions bite.