Mullahs on his mind

Given the story that appeared over the weekend in Newsweek, it's pretty clear that we don't have the slightest idea who's calling the shots in Iran. Nevertheless, Tony Snow sees fit to utter this.

The White House and the State Department both made clear on Monday that they endorsed the findings presented in Baghdad. Asked for direct evidence linking Iran’s leadership to the weapons, Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said: “Let me put it this way. There’s not a whole lot of freelancing in the Iranian government, especially when its comes to something like that.”

Now, the story about Iran you should read, as it is based on, you know, facts, and which goes to the heart of the motivations of Iran's leadership.

Western political and economic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program has chilled foreign investment to the extent that it is now squeezing the country’s long-fragile energy industry, adding strains to a government that is burdened by sanctions and wary of unrest at home.

The world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, Iran sits on the second-largest oil and gas reserves. But it has struggled in recent years to keep its oil production, currently running at about four million barrels a day, from falling.

Some analysts say that if this acute imbalance between stagnant production and rising demand at home continues unchecked, Iran will have no oil left over to export within a decade. Its oil exports, totaling $47 billion last year, account for half the government’s revenue.

“They have a perfect storm of problems feeding into each other,” said Robert Murphy, an analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington. He estimated that Iran might have no more oil to export by around 2015 if it did not rein in runaway consumption and reverse the long-term decline in its oil production.

“The domestic energy situation is as big as the international issue, and feeds into it in a very significant way,” he said.

Now this bears watching.