By Staff Writer
The Iranian regime has lost $10 billion in revenue since US sanctions came into full force in November and removed roughly 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude from global markets, according to a US State Department official on Wednesday.
Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative on Iran, told the CERAWeek energy conference that the US’ plan to bring Iranian crude exports to zero is moving along nicely, citing that a global oil surplus as a big help in this regard.
Hook said that Donald Trump had “made it very clear that [the US needs] to have a campaign of maximum economic pressure” on Iran without shocking the oil market.
The US began their maximum pressure campaign last year, when Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal citing Iran’s blatant cheating and reimposed tough Obama-era sanctions on everything from Iran’s use of the US dollar to their automobile industry to their lucrative oil industry.
The oil sanctions hurt the most, because 70% of Iran’s GDP comes from that sector, but in order to stabilise the markets and ensure that the sanctions work in the long run, the US issued sanctions waivers to eight of Iran’s top buyers, in exchange for them cutting their purchases by over 20%. Hook advised that the US is monitoring global supplies for impact from sanctions in order to ensure they are going about this in a “responsible way”.
Hook, a senior policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said: “When you have a better-supplied oil market it enables us to accelerate our path to zero. But we also know that there are a lot of variables that go into a well-supplied and stable oil market.”
However, now it appears that these waivers – due to expire in May – will not need extensions because the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that this year supply will exceed demand by 440,000 bpd.
It is clear that the oil sanctions have worked, so where do we go next? Well, the logical option is what the US is already trying to do. They want more sanctions on Iran for human rights violations, financing of terrorism, missile launches, as well as US allies to come on board.
This is what the Iranian people want too. The sanctions are not harming them because sanctions relief did not help them. The Regime used that money to suppress the people and without it, the mullahs are liable to overthrow by the people, which will bring freedom to Iran.