{"id":45782,"date":"2019-04-30T07:51:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T12:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45782"},"modified":"2019-04-30T07:51:46","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T12:51:46","slug":"patrick-lawrence-the-us-moves-on-irans-oil-market-as-an-expression-of-an-irrational-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45782","title":{"rendered":"PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Moves on Iran\u2019s Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Moves on Iran\u2019s Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo\u2019s withdrawal on Thursday of U.S. sanction waivers from eight major importers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Decisive Defeat in Long-Running Battle with Foreign Policy Minders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

S<\/strong>ecretary of State Mike Pompeo\u2019s announcement last week that no importer of Iranian oil will henceforth be exempt from U.S. sanctions is as risky as it is misguided. The withdrawal of waivers<\/a> as of this Thursday effectively gives eight importers dependent on Iranian crude \u2014 India, Japan, South Korea, China, Turkey, Taiwan, Italy, and Greece \u2014 10 days\u2019 notice to adjust their petroleum purchases. This is now a full-court press: The intent is to cut off Iran\u2019s access to any oil market anywhere as part of the administration\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign against Tehran. \u201cWe are going to zero,\u201d Pompeo said<\/a> as he disclosed the new policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody is going to zero. The administration\u2019s move will further damage the Iranian economy, certainly, but few outside the administration think it is possible to isolate Iran as comprehensively as Pompeo seems to expect. Turkey immediately rejected<\/a> \u201cunilateral sanctions and impositions on how to conduct relations with neighbors,\u201d as Foreign Minister Mevl\u00fct \u00c7avusoglu put it in a Twitter message. China could do the same, if less bluntly. Other oil importers are likely to consider barter deals, local-currency transactions, and similar \u201cworkarounds.\u201d In the immediate neighborhood, Iraq is so far ignoring U.S. demands<\/a> that it cease purchasing natural gas and electricity from Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pompeo<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pompeo joining an Iranian diaspora meeting in Dallas, April 15, 2019. (State Department\/Ron Przysucha via Flickr)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insights on Overreach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a couple of insights to be gleaned from this unusually aggressive case of policy overreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Moves on Iran\u2019s Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo\u2019s withdrawal on Thursday of U.S. sanction waivers from eight major importers.  A Decisive Defeat in Long-Running Battle with Foreign Policy Minders Secretary of State Mike Pompeo\u2019s announcement last week that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[15128,2245,21211,827,17693],"class_list":["post-45782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-mike-pompeo","tag-oil-market","tag-patrick-lawrence","tag-united-states","tag-us-economic-sanctions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45784,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45782\/revisions\/45784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}