INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
TEHRAN - A senior fellow with the Independent Institute urges President Joe Biden to take a political decision to remove the Islamic
Revolution Guards Corps from terrorist list, saying it would help revive the 2015 nuclear deal which would instead allow Iran to export more
oil.Ivan Eland says since the Democrats are facing midterm Congressional elections and gas price is a determinant factor, excessive oil by
For decades, however, U.S
presidents have assumed that the Saudis have more control over the world oil price than they do and have been excessively obsequious to
their whims, desires, and transgressions, most infamously after predominantly Saudi hijackers killed almost three thousand Americans on 9/11
with evidence of at least some Saudi government culpability
Biden promised to be different and hold the Saudis to better account, but it seems he will fall into the same unneeded coddling behavior U.S
presidents have exhibited in the past.Although Biden, like past presidents, is not very responsible for the high (or low) gas prices
consumers are experiencing, he also has very limited means to do anything about the problem
Such palliatives, however, will not dramatically reduce oil prices in the short term
Unfortunately for Democrats, political research shows that most voters vote on economic developments occurring only in the months before an
presidents and other politicians when the oil price is high, a worldwide market for oil exists and works very simply
If a producer (or producers) anywhere in the world reduces exports, the world price rises; if instead more oil is exported into the market
from any source, the price decreases
Plus) oil cartel when prices surge, although most economists are skeptical that any natural resource cartel, including one producing oil,
can elevate the long-term price of a commodity
The oil cartel has quotas for various countries to restrain overall production and keep the price above the free-market equilibrium
If the world price goes up for any reason, however, cartel members have the opportunity to make windfall profits but feel restrained by the
quotas and thus, have an incentive to cheat on them by secretly pumping above their limits
When world production increases from cheating, the world price goes back down
unsuccessful because of their all-too-recent memories of oil prices plummeting at the beginning of the pandemic, demonstrating that,
depending on global events, oil prices can go down as fast as they can go up
(And low prices are no panacea either as they are usually a symptom of a world economic slowdown which is harmful to major U.S
industries.) Opening offshore areas and federal lands to exploration and loosening restrictions on pipeline construction to bring more
Canadian oil into the United States will eventually help reduce the oil price, but it will also be politically costly for Biden within his
to put more oil on the world market
To help alleviate pressure on the world price, the United States does not need to buy oil from those nations; Venezuela and Iran just need
to be able to sell oil on the world market
However, the Venezuelan oil industry has been crippled by U.S
sanctions and socialist economic policies and will likely take a long time to get production ramped up
However, Iran has a lot of oil ready to go to market if Biden could reach a deal to reinstate the agreement containing the Iranian nuclear
The only stumbling block to this double win for the United States is that Iran wants the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) taken off
Even if that happens, the IRGC would still be under other U.S
sanctions but, again, the main obstacle is politics: Republicans, Israel, and Saudi Arabia all would falsely accuse Biden of being soft on
terrorism.Because most U.S
unleash its oil supplies to compensate for reduced Russian production which would put downward pressure on the world oil price quickly
All of this would be more effective than Biden visiting Saudi Arabia, which has as bad a human rights record and beg Riyadh to pump more
