Europe is dependent on foreign oil.  The European Union was pushed into joining the United States in placing an embargo on Iranian oil (in exchange for exempting British Petroleum).  Now Iran says, so what, we’ll voluntarily cut off European oil supplies!

Lawmakers in the Iranian Majlis (similar to a parliament or congress) will decide a new bill on January 29, 2012.  If approved it would cease all oil shipments to Europe by the end of next week.  That’s significant, because the EU oil embargo involves only new oil contracts, not existing ones.

So, in reality the EU oil embargo is a paper tiger, because it doesn’t involve existing oil deals (part of the deal with the U.S. and exempting BP).  The Iranians have realized that oil is, at this point, their greatest weapon.

The United Kingdom is already suffering increasing fuel costs, and their fuel stations are running dry, because of internal problems.  So how stupid are countries who rely on foreign oil suppliers, when they threaten their own oil suppliers?

Could Iran voluntarily halting oil shipments, to U.S. and EU buyers, be a greater incentive to go to war, then their alleged nuclear weapons program?   Modern societies don’t run on nuclear bombs (not counting the ticking time bomb nuclear power plants), they run on oil.