The Iranian move is highly sensible: it makes it impossible for the EU to openly adapt by switching to other suppliers. If the Europeans decide to abandon Iranian oil in the future, they will lose it immediately.

With this possibility in mind, the EU is unlikely to institute an embargo on Iranian oil.

But why wait until the bunker-busters can be upgraded when we can use tactical nuclear weapons?

Hamas, remember, is vitally dependent on Iran, which is a Shiite country. Iran is known for fostering Shiite movements even in Africa, and certainly in the Middle East. Iranian political expansion is usually related to the ayatollahs’ goal of spreading their version of Islam.

The fact that Hamas can suppress Shiites and then boast of it shows that Iranian imperial ambitions are not directed toward religious ends. Because the Iranians pursue rational political goals, they would not consider apocalyptic solutions, and can be checked.

Iran now pumps out as much oil as it can, and foreign companies still compete fiercely for oil and gas development projects there. Skyrocketing oil prices in the wake of the Arab Spring events easily offset whatever small effect the sanctions had on Iran.

Iran’s economic troubles are similar to those of other Muslim countries, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. A burgeoning population, an influx of rural residents into the towns, an inability to compete internationally in the technological economy, socialist policies with heavy subsidies, gross corruption and mismanagement, unsupportable military expenses—these and other factors combined to devastate the Iranian economy, with or without US input.

Moreover, Iran’s population attributes the country’s economic troubles to the secular government rather than to the supreme ruler. That weakens Ahmadinejad, who is a moderate compared to Grand Ayatollah Khamenei.

And no amount of economic trouble would prompt Ayatollah Khamenei to relinquish his nuclear program, because Shiite military dominance is for him a religious issue.

Such a scenario is the only plausible way to deal with the Qom underground facility and the unknown locations of Iran’s nuclear stockpiles. It would also be a significant boost to Obama’s foreign policy credentials before the upcoming elections: carrying out regime change in Iran would vindicate the policy he tested in Libya. The problem with this scenario is that foreign policy achievements mean little to US voters, who are mostly concerned with domestic problems, while foreign policy failures might cost a president dearly; therefore, Obama is hesitant to strike.

And so joint Israeli-American maneuvers are scheduled for April. The exercises would provide an air defense shield for Israel in the event of a strike.

Once again, the Iranians did not retaliate against Israel, which supports our view that the ayatollahs would not counter-attack after a strike on their nuclear facilities.

The proud Iranians won’t sacrifice their nuclear ambitions because of an embargo. A ban would also be ineffective, as Iran could continue exporting oil to India and China, and on the black market. It could also re-export through Russia.

If Israel bought Iranian oil for years through Glencore, despite all the Muslim embargoes, how do we expect an EU embargo to work any better?

Iran is already working on extracting plutonium from depleted rods, which would enable it to make a plutonium bomb, a cheaper alternative to uranium weapons.

We have predicted many times that the Iranian nuclear program will switch to extracting plutonium from Bushehr.

Immediately after the US withdrawal, Maliki started pushing Sunnis out of the coalition government, and threatened the Kurds with invasion.

By ruling Iraq through a proxy government, Iran achieves true regional hegemony as its imperial borders spread to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria (and so Israel). Now Iran can easily stir up hostilities in Jordan through the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.