As the Obama administration struggles to devise a strategy for dealing with Iran's intransigence on the uranium enrichment issue, it appears to be gravitating toward the imposition of an international embargo on gasoline sales to that country. Such a ban would be enacted if Iranian officials fail to come up with an acceptable negotiating plan by the time the UN General Assembly meets in late September the deadline given by the White House for a constructive Iranian move.
Iran, of course, is a major oil producer, pumping out some 4.3 million barrels per day in 2008. But it is also a major petroleum consumer. And its oil industry has a significant structural weakness: Its refinery capacity is too constricted to satisfy the nation's gasoline requirements. As a result, Iran must import about 40% of its refined products. Government officials are attempting to reduce this dependency through rationing and other measures, but the country remains highly vulnerable to any cutoff in gasoline imports.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6371
article by Michael T. Klare, a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6371