Wanna Stick It To Iran? Use Plenty of Gas

Iran has to pay six times the price it sells gasoline to import it:

IRANIANS are among the world's biggest consumers of gasoline because the product is kept at an artificially low price through government subsidies. The Iranian cabinet decided in mid-January that it would try to reduce consumption by introducing gasoline rationing, and reports from the provinces reveal that rationing is already taking place. The measure will not be popular among the Iranian public. Concern about the potential effect of sanctions--relating to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737, which was issued in late December due to concern over Iran's suspicious nuclear activities--may be behind the push for austerity measures.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 10 percent of the world's total proven oil reserves are in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, Iran produced approximately 5 percent of global crude production. Yet despite its status as a producing country, Iran has been importing gasoline and other refined products since 1982. Indeed, only the United States surpasses Iran in gasoline imports by volume.

Iranian consumers use so much gasoline--Tehran projects 75 million liters this year--because prices are kept at an artificially low level. Gasoline there costs approximately $0.40/gallon ($0.09/liter), but Minister of Economy and Finance Davud Danesh-Jafari said last summer that the real cost is roughly six times that amount--$0.57/liter.

President Ahmadinejad's cabinet approved a gasoline-rationing plan in early January. This was not the first such effort--an earlier one, in June 2006, fell by the wayside after fears arose of a public backlash. Then, the legislature approved the state budget's call for rationing, but

the next month it instead allowed the government to withdraw an additional $4 billion to spend on fuel imports.

Wanna bankrupt the mullahs? Drop the gas tax and let Americans use as much of the supply as possible. The Iranians will then need to pay our refineries even more to get their gas at a rate which will dwarf any rise in crude oil prices.

Drive a Hummer, Starve A Mullah.