Well, for openers, most of Western Europe has been shopping for oil elsewhere for quite a while now.
That's in the body of the story, which actually tells us that Iran is being squeezed from all sides. They can't refine their own oil, because they've been so intent building nuclear reactors and processors they've never gotten around to building something rather more simple. Like oil refineries.
These clowns export crude, and import every drop of gasoline they burn. Sheer genius, is it not?
What's not mentioned in the article is this simple fact: The oil is pumped out of the ground, and pumped onto tankers, who then carry it to the purchaser at any number of destination ports. In the meantime, there is a worldwide, daily, liquid, fluid market in crude oil. That tanker of oil may change hands a dozen times between the port in Iran and the destination port. Sometimes, if there's a glut, the tanker sits anchored at sea until such time as someone decides to buy the contents. In short, once it's on the boat, the Iranians have no say in where it ends up. They ship oil at a contracted price, and get paid for it by the initial purchaser, who then sells it on to the next party, who then sells it on...
Meanwhile, we have a substantial part of the most lethal naval fleet in the history of mankind posted up in the Straits of Hormuz, keeping guard over this craziness. We haven't built a refinery in the US in over three decades, because the same Federal government that sends aircraft carrier groups to the Straits of Hormuz to 'safeguard the oil supply' won't allow anyone to build a refinery on US soil, and routinely discourages anyone from tapping into the sea of oil, gas, and coal that lies underneath the surface of this country.
Someone, somewhere, please listen up: This is madness--it's going to impoverish most of us, and get a lot of people killed to boot.
OS has a friend whose son has just graduated from US Army Airborne training. It's a proud moment for that family. OS holds his breath, wondering what sorts of perils the boy will face because the leadership of this country is so completely incompetent.
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