No More Gasoline for you, Iran!

It was reported on CNNMoney.com that the Royal Dutch Shell company ceased selling gasoline to the country of Iran sometime in late 2009. The reasons for the halt on sales is unknown, but we can speculate that it has something to do with the possibility of US sanctions on gasoline imports to Iran.

The US senate recently passed a bill allowing Obama to increase sanctions on Iran in response to the country’s developing nuclear program. Iran claims that the reason for its nuclear program is purely for energy, but the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons is in the back of all our minds for several reasons.

First, the rather undeveloped country of Iran is sitting on one of the largest oil reserves in the world. You can’t honestly tell me that a country that severely limits the amount of technology available to its citizens and has more oil than it can use has a need for nuclear power to survive.

Second, the “elected” president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly stated that he wants to blow Israel off of the face of the map. As if that weren’t enough, Iran has purchased technology from North Korea that gives them the ability to accurately hit targets in Europe with missiles, including nuclear missiles if they obtain them. This alone is enough to prove that the first thing Iran will do if/when it obtains nuclear power is to develop nuclear warheads to attack countries it sees as enemies. Although the country of Iran is a republic with an elected president, there is not a lot of confidence in the election because elections are usually landslide victories upwards of 100%, and the votes are counted at unusually (almost impossibly) high speeds. It is more likely than not that the presidential elections are extremely rigged, so the person who wins is simply a puppet president controlled by the Ayatollahs (who truly run the country). It is commonly believed that Iran is one of the largest supporters of terrorism in the world because the country is actually run by extremists with destructive political agendas. Also, the fact that the other powerful party in Iran is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group believed to be responsible for the development and supplying of Iraq with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) to fight against the American military, doesn’t exactly give Iran credibility in developing nuclear power for non-lethal purposes.

Lastly, Iran is actually comprised of Shiite Muslims (Persians) who speak Farsi, not Arabic. Historically, there was a large division of power in the Muslim world between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and a large power struggle resulted. The Shiites believed that they should be the preeminent power in the Muslim world, and many of those sentiments exist today.

All signs point to danger for the entire world if Iran is able to obtain nuclear technologies. I believe that Shell is making the right decision to stop supplying Iran with gasoline, and the rest of the world should follow suit.