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Don't Give Up on Sanctions
(New York Times) Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz - We have to make sanctions on Iran smarter and more mutually reinforcing. Iran exports 2.3 million barrels of oil every day - accounting for more than 50% of Iran's national budget. Sanctions obviously need to hit this industry harder. Effective energy sanctions don't have to raise oil prices; Washington just has to learn how to leverage greed. We should bar from operating in the U.S. any European and most Asian energy companies that deal in Iranian oil and work with the Iranian central bank, Revolutionary Guards or National Oil Company. At the same time, however, we should allow companies from China that are willing to risk their access to American markets to continue buying Iranian crude in whatever quantity they desire. This would reduce the number of buyers of Iranian petroleum, without reducing the quantity of oil on the market. With fewer buyers to compete with, the Chinese companies would have significant negotiating leverage with which to extract discounts from Iran, which could lose out on tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue. Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Mark Dubowitz is executive director.