So crude prices are now at a 43-month high.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17229025
The initial suggestion seems to be a "rumour" that an oil pipe in Saudi exploded. The Sauds deny this with an odd "nothing to see here" vein of non-statement which I find quite suspicious.
You may remember that just a month ago the Saudis, in typically over-the-top House O' Saud fashion, promised to mop up the shortfall in supply that would result if Iran were to cut the Straits of Hormuz. The promise was that Saudi Arabia had enough to turn the Iranian threat into a mere trifle.
Well the markets aren't buying it.
Stephen Chu (US Energy Secretary) refers to "spare capacity" in the oil supply but he is being horrifically disingenous if not downright stupid. Mr Chu knows full well that Iran is one of the top five oil producers and that China has no intention of playing America's games for it. In other words, what might be a squeeze in Iran could prove a collapse for the teetering US economy.
With yet more evidence of western attempts to silence Iranian protestations over sanctions, it would seem highly likely that a major chink in the armour of Saud's bravura is now appearing.
Just recently, Press TV (Iran's English-speaking mouthpiece) had its license revoked in the UK under the spurious assertion that it did not have UK registration. Hmm...guess who else has no such "registration" in the UK? Try CNN and FOX.
So the upshot of it is this: Iran's brutal regime has already achieved their goal: to put far greater economic pressure on the west than the west can put on Iran.
Short of a no-holds-barred war against Iran (for which there is next to no support in Europe nor America) there is little that can be done beyond the common sense of minding our own business where Iran is concerned.
Martin Luther once wrote that war is only glorious to those who have no experience of it. In a similar vein, sanctions and imposed deprivation are only glorious to those whose own lives would remain untouched by poverty.
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