According to press accounts, the Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that “Iran has enough funds to withstand a total embargo on its oil sales for two to three years.”
Cool! Let’s put him and his cronies to the test. Robust sanctions, in combination with other efforts to put the pressure on the boys in Tehran (such as shining a spotlight on the government’s abysmal human rights record), is the best means to foster internal regime change in the country.
Ahmadinejad must think he is prepping for the summer Olympics to set the world record for blustering.
Blustering is apparently a prime instrument of Iranian foreign policy. Remember a short time ago when Iranian politicians threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that carries about one-third of the world’s oil exports?
The real problem with Iran, however, is not the empty threats but a foreign policy bent on making serious trouble. Recent reports out of the Britain, for example, claim that Iran is helping fashion bombs to kill NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. It has long been suspected that Tehran set up a pipeline for funneling powerful improvised explosive devises to kill coalition soldiers in Iraq.
Iran has also been also been singled out as one of the world’s most active state sponsors of terrorism.
And, by the way, the Iranians are suspected of having a program to develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to put them on.
The U.S. needs a serious endgame for the dangerous and deadly regime in Iran. Listening to Ahmadinejad’s rants isn’t it.