Federal government can’t solve alone

Iran Advantage

1NC Iran Advantage

Domestic Drilling doesn’t solve leverage – still uses the global market, giving Iran Profits

Beddor et al 9 “Securing America’s Future Enhancing Our National Security by Reducing Oil Dependence and Environmental Damage” Christopher Beddor, Winny Chen, Rudy deLeon, Shiyong Park, and Daniel J. Weiss August 2009, http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2009/08/pdf/energy_security.pdf

Former military officials are speaking out on this issue. The CNA Military Advisory Board, a group of distinguished retired military leaders, issued a report in May 2009 arguing that America's reliance on foreign oil poses a serious threat to U.S. national security. The report, entitled "Powering Americas Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security," concluded that "US dependence on oil weakens international leverage, undermines foreign policy objectives, and entangles America with unstable or hostile regimes?" America's oil dependence has other indirect but no less serious impacts on U.S. interests. For example, high rates of American consumption drive up global demand for oil, which fuels lofty prices and helps to fund and to sustain undemocratic and corrupt regimes. Because of this anti-Western nations such as Iran-with whom the United States by law cannot trade or buy oil-benefit regardless of who the end buyer of the fuel is.

Iran can’t arm twist the US – we don’t get an oil from Iran – here’s a chart

Sedghi 12 “Iran oil exports: where do they go?” Ami Sedghi- award winning data researcher and reporter for the Guardian, Monday 6 February 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/feb/06/iran-oil-exports-destination#data

Iran cut off has no impact – other countries fill in

Philips 12 “Does the World Need Iran's Oil? Apparently Not” Matthew Philips-Associate editor for Bloomberg, August 10, 2012, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-10/does-the-world-need-irans-oil-apparently-not

It’s been about a month since the full extent of the West’s oil sanctions against Iran went into effect. And so far, they seem to be working better than expected. Iran’s oil exports have fallen by about 1.4 million barrels per day, which “substantially exceeds” an earlier estimate of 900,000 barrels, according to an Aug. 9 report by Goldman Sachs (GS) energy analyst David Greely. That’s a 50 percent cut in Iran’s crude exports in the past year, quite a bit steeper than the gradual “20 to 30 percent” decline predicted in June by Iran’s government, which gets about 80 percent of its revenue from oil. At $100 a barrel, that’s roughly $100 million a day in revenue that is no longer flowing into Iran’s coffers. And inflation is starting to take hold—the price of chicken has tripled since last year. The Goldman report estimates that U.S. sanctions have cut demand for Iranian crude by about 350,000 barrels per day, and that the European Union embargo have reduced it by another 600,000 barrels per day. The extra 500,000 barrel loss comes from the fact that Iran can no longer get ships from other countries to carry its oil. The EU sanctions ban European insurance companies from covering ships carrying Iranian oil—a big problem for Iran considering EU companies control at least 90 percent of the oil tanker insurance market, according to the Goldman report. If you were feeling dodgy about carrying Iranian oil before, you’re certainly not going to do so without insurance. India recently approved a government-backed insurance program to cover tankers carrying Iranian crude, but it’s not likely to come anywhere close to providing the $1 billion of coverage typically needed to insure a full tanker. And so Iran’s ability to export its oil now rests almost entirely with its own fleet of ships, which it apparently has been trying to disguise. You’d think that losing half the oil from a top OPEC producer like Iran would roil the oil markets. But so far, the world doesn’t seem to be missing Iran’s oil. That’s mostly because we’re swimming in crude as it is. Saudi Arabia is overproducing. Iraq just passed Iran as OPEC’s second-largest oil producer. Libya is back. And production in the U.S. is rising faster than anyone thought. According to Timothy Evans, energy futures strategist at Citigroup (C), U.S. oil production is up 14.2 percent over the last 12 months. Not that we export any of that oil. But gains in domestic production have lessened our need for OPEC oil, meaning it’s free to find other markets such as China and India.

Revenue decline is inevitable and means no impact

Gasiorowski 7 (Mark Gasiorowski, Summer 2007. Professor of political science and director of the International Studies Program at Louisiana State University. “The New Aggressiveness in Iran’s Foreign Policy,” Middle East Policy 14.2, Proquest)

Economic conditions also continue to constrain Iran's foreign policy. Despite moderate economic growth during the past decade, unemployment remains high and living standards remain somewhat lower than at their pre-revolutionary peak some 30 years ago, fueling popular discontent. The current oil boom has produced a sharp increase in Iran's export revenue during the past few years, but much of this has been spent on higher imports, foreign borrowing and consumer-goods subsidies. During his 2005 presidential campaign, Ahmadinejad made unrealistic promises to raise living standards, creating high expectations that have not been met. His populist policies have failed to address the country's deeply rooted economic problems and are producing higher inflation. Moreover, declining oil production and rapidly increasing domestic energy consumption are likely to produce a steep drop in Iran's oil and gas exports in the coming years, sharply reducing its export revenue. Therefore, while the oil boom has strengthened Iran and contributed to its new aggressiveness, its effects have been limited and will likely dissipate in the coming years. Iran's leaders still face strong pressure to pursue moderate foreign policies that will help raise living standards and revitalize the economy.

No impact to Iran Proliferation—credible U.S. and Israel deterrence, leadership is rational, won’t give weapons to terrorists

Carpenter, 12 (Ted Galen – senior fellow at the Cato Institute, April 12, “The Pernicious Myth That Iran Can’t Be Deterred”, CATO Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/pernicious-myth-iran-cant-be-deterred)

Rumblings about possible war with Iran have grown louder in Washington and other Western capitals in the past few months. Speculation has centered on the likelihood that Israel will launch preemptive air strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations, but there is also considerable talk that the United States might join in such strikes or even take on the primary mission to make certain that the key sites are destroyed.

Most advocates of military action against Iran contend that the system of international economic sanctions against the clerical regime is not halting progress on the country’s nuclear program and that the world simply cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. President Obama has stated repeatedly that it would be “unacceptable” for Tehran to have nuclear weapons, and Mitt Romney, the President’s likely opponent in the November election, says flatly that he will never allow the emergence of a nuclear Iran on his watch.

The reason that a growing number of politicians and pundits embrace the war option, even though most of them concede that such a step could create dangerous instability in an already turbulent region, is that they explicitly or implicitly believe that Iran is undeterrable. The typical allegation is that if Iran builds nuclear weapons, it will use them — certainly against Israel, and possibly against the United States or its NATO allies. Most realists dispute that notion, pointing out that the United States has several thousand nuclear weapons and successfully deterred such difficult actors as the Soviet Union and Maoist China. They also note that Israel has between 150 and 300 nuclear weapons — an extremely credible deterrent.

None of that matters, hawks contend, because the Iranian leadership is not rational and, therefore, the normal logic of deterrence does not apply. Several war advocates stress Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s obsession with the return of the “12th Imam,” an event in Islamic lore that is to be accompanied by an apocalypse. Clifford May, the head of the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, argues that “more than a few of Iran’s rulers hold the theological conviction that the return of the Mahdi, the savior, can be brought about only by an apocalypse.” He goes on to cite ultra-hawkish Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis, who asserts that for those who share Ahmadinejad’s vision, “mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent. It’s an inducement.”

There are several problems with that thesis. First, Ahmadinejad is hardly the most powerful figure in the Iranian political system. That’s why the all-too-frequent comparisons of Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler are especially absurd. The real power in Iran is held by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle of senior clerics. And members of that leadership elite have publicly rebuked Ahmadinejad for devoting too much time and energy to the issue of the 12th Imam.

Second, the return of the Mahdi in the midst of an apocalypse is scarcely a unique religious myth. Most major religions have an “end of the world” mystic scenario involving a savior. Christianity, for example, has the Book of Revelations, with the appearance of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, Armageddon, and the second coming of Jesus Christ. Given the influence of Christianity among American political leaders, foreign critics could make the case that the United States cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, because a devout Christian leader who believed Revelations would be tempted to bring about Armageddon.

The reality is that leaders in any political system usually prefer to enjoy the riches and other perks of this life rather than seek to bring about prematurely the speculative benefits of a next life. There is no credible evidence that the Iranian leadership deviates from that norm. And those leaders certainly know that a nuclear attack on Israel, the United States, or Washington’s NATO allies would trigger a devastating counter-attack that would end their rule and obliterate Iran as a functioning society.

It is appropriate to demand that hawks produce evidence — not just allegations — that deterrence is inapplicable because Iranian leaders are suicidal. But one will search in vain for such evidence in the thirty-three years that the clerical regime has held power.

There is, in fact, an abundance of counter-evidence. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, has stated that he considers Iran’s leaders — including Ahmadinejad — “very rational”. Tehran’s behavior over the years confirms that assessment. During the early stages of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, the Ayatollah Khomeini said that he would “never make peace” with Saddam Hussein. But when the war dragged on for years and the correlation of forces turned against Iran, the country’s military leaders persuaded Khomeini and the clerical elite to conclude a compromise peace. That’s hardly the behavior of an irrational, suicidal political system.

Indeed, there is strong evidence that Iranian leaders understand that there are red lines that they dare not cross. One of the specters that Western hawks create is that Iran would transfer nuclear weapons to non-state terrorist groups. But Iran has had chemical weapons in its arsenal since the days of the Shah. There is not a shred of evidence that Tehran has passed on such weapons to any of its political clients, including Hezbollah and Hamas. Given the visceral hatred those organizations harbor toward Israel, it is nearly certain that they would have used chemical weapons against Israeli targets if Iran had ever put them in their hands. Again, it certainly appears that deterrence neutralized any temptation Tehran might have had to engage in reckless conduct.

A more rational fear than the notion that Iran would commit suicide by launching a nuclear attack against adversaries who have vast nuclear arsenals, or even that Iran would court a similar fate by supplying terrorist groups with nukes, is the thesis that Tehran would exploit a nuclear shield to then bully its neighbors. But even that fear is greatly exaggerated. As Cato Institute scholar Justin Logan points out in the April issue of The American Conservative, Iran’s conventional forces are weak and the country’s power projection capabilities are meager. A nuclear Iran likely would be capable of deterring a US attack on its homeland — attacks that the United States has a habit of launching against non-nuclear adversaries like Serbia, Iraq and Libya — but such a capability would not translate into Iranian domination of the Middle East. That nightmare scenario is only a little less overwrought than the other theories about the “Iranian threat.”

They won’t proliferate—long timeframe, no evidence they’re making moves, we would detect it, forceful international response, no covert uranium enrichment plants, no decision from leaders to develop weapons

Kahl, 12 (Colin H. Kahl – Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, March/April, “Not Time to Attack Iran: Why War Should Be a Last Resort”, Foreign Affairs, ProQuest)

bad timing

Kroenig argues that there is an urgent need to attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure soon, since Tehran could "produce its first nuclear weapon within six months of deciding to do so." Yet that last phrase is crucial. The International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea) has documented Iranian efforts to achieve the capacity to develop nuclear weapons at some point, but there is no hard evidence that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has yet made the final decision to develop them.

In arguing for a six-month horizon, Kroenig also misleadingly conflates hypothetical timelines to produce weaponsgrade uranium with the time actually required to construct a bomb. According to 2010 Senate testimony by James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staa, and recent statements by the former heads of Israel's national intelligence and defense intelligence agencies, even if Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in six months, it would take it at least a year to produce a testable nuclear device and considerably longer to make a deliverable weapon. And David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (and the source of Kroenig's six-month estimate), recently told Agence France-Presse that there is a "low probability" that the Iranians would actually develop a bomb over the next year even if they had the capability to do so. Because there is no evidence that Iran has built additional covert enrichment plants since the Natanz and Qom sites were outed in 2002 and 2009, respectively, any near-term move by Tehran to produce weapons-grade uranium would have to rely on its declared facilities. The iaea would thus detect such activity with su/cient time for the international community to mount a forceful response. As a result, the Iranians are unlikely to commit to building nuclear weapons until they can do so much more quickly or out of sight, which could be years oa.

Kroenig is also inconsistent about the timetable for an attack. In some places, he suggests that strikes should begin now, whereas in others, he argues that the United States should attack only if Iran takes certain actions-such as expelling iaea inspectors, beginning the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium, or installing large numbers of advanced centrifuges, any one of which would signal that it had decided to build a bomb. Kroenig is likely right that these developments-and perhaps others, such as the discovery of new covert enrichment sites-would create a decision point for the use of force. But the Iranians have not taken these steps yet, and as Kroenig acknowledges, "Washington has a very good chance" of detecting them if they do.

Iran won’t close the Strait of Hormuz—damage to its own economy, not easy, empirics, US and allies military forces, risk of retaliation against nuclear program

Russell and Boot, 12 (Bradley S. Russell – navy captain and visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former chief of staff to U.S. Navy Central Command/Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, Max Boot – senior fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, 1/4, “Iran Won't Close the Strait of Hormuz”, Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020463220457713083420065 6156.html)

Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz last week, in response to U.S. and European Union moves to apply sanctions on its oil industry. Only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, the strait sees the passage of roughly 28 tanker ships a day, half loaded, half empty. Some 17 million barrels of oil—20% of oil traded in the world—go through this chokepoint. If Iran really could close the strait, it would do great damage to the world economy. But it would also damage its own already shaky economy because Iran relies on the strait to deliver oil exports to China and other customers.

In any case, closing the strait is not nearly as easy as Adm. Habibollah Sayari, commander of the Iranian Navy, would have it. He said that closing the strait is "as easy as drinking a glass of water." Actually it would be about as easy as drinking an entire bucket of water in one gulp.

Iran tried this trick before and failed miserably. In 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein attacked Iranian oil tankers and the Iranian oil-processing facility at Kharq Island. Iran struck back by attacking Kuwaiti tankers carrying Iraqi crude and then other tankers in the Persian Gulf. In 1987, after years of growing disruptions in this vital waterway, President Ronald Reagan responded by offering to reflag Kuwaiti tankers with the U.S. flag and provide U.S. naval escort. Iran shied away from direct attacks on U.S. warships but continued sowing mines, staging attacks with small patrol boats, and firing a variety of missiles at tankers.

On April 14, 1988, the guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine; no sailors were killed but several were injured and the ship nearly sank. The U.S. Navy responded by launching Operation Praying Mantis, its biggest surface combat action since World War II.

Half a dozen U.S. warships in two separate Surface Action Groups moved in to destroy two Iranian oil platforms. The Iranians responded by sending armed speedboats, frigates and F-4 aircraft to fire at the U.S. warships.

In defending themselves, the American vessels sank at least three Iranian speedboats, one gunboat and one frigate; other Iranian ships and aircraft were damaged. The only major U.S. loss occurred when a Marine Corps Sea Cobra helicopter crashed, apparently by accident, killing two crewmen.

The war all but ended less than three months later when the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes mistakenly fired a surface-to-air missile at an Iranian passenger airliner that it had mistaken for a fighter jet. The plane was destroyed and 290 people killed. Although this was an accident, the Iranian regime was convinced that Washington was escalating the conflict and decided to reach a truce with Iraq.

The greatest loss suffered by U.S. forces during this whole conflict occurred in 1987 when an Iraqi aircraft fired an Exocet missile that hit the frigate USS Stark, killing 37 sailors and injuring 21. (Saddam Hussein claimed this was an accident.)

The Iranians had little to show for their efforts: Lloyd's of London estimated that the Tanker War resulted in damage to 546 commercial vessels and the deaths of 430 civilian mariners but many of those losses were caused by Iraq, not Iran. While these attacks temporarily disrupted the free passage of oil, they did not come close to closing the strait.

Despite the unveiling of a new antiship cruise missile called the Qader, Iran's conventional naval and air forces—on display during the Veleyat 90 naval exercises in the Persian Gulf which ended Monday— are still no match for the U.S. and its allies in the region. The U.S. alone has in the area two carrier strike groups, an expeditionary strike force (centered around an amphibious assault ship that is in essence a small aircraft carrier), and numerous land-based aircraft at bases such as Al Udied in Qatar, Al Dafra in the United Arab Emirates, and Isa Air Base in Bahrain. The U.S. and our Arab allies (which are equipped with a growing array of modern American-made equipment such as F-15s and F-16s) could use overwhelming force to destroy Iran's conventional naval forces in very short order.

Iran's real ability to disrupt the flow of oil lies in its asymmetric war-fighting capacity. Iran has thousands of mines(and any ship that can carry a mine is by definition a mine-layer), a small number of midget submarines, thousands of small watercraft that could be used in swarm attacks, and antiship cruise missiles. If the Iranians lay mines, it will take a significant amount of time to clear them. It took several months to clear all mines after the Tanker War, but a much shorter period to clear safe passages through the Persian Gulf to and from oil shipping terminals.

Antiship cruise missiles are mobile, yet those can also be found and destroyed. Yono submarines are short-duration threats—they eventually have to come to port for resupply, and when they do they will be sitting ducks. U.S. forces may take losses, as they did with the hits on the USS Stark and Samuel B. Roberts, but they will prevail and in fairly short order.

The Iranians must realize that the balance of forces does not lie in their favor. By initiating hostilities they risk American retaliation against their most prized assets—their covert nuclear-weapons program. The odds are good, then, that the Iranians will not follow through on their saber-rattling threats.