If Iran conformed to the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), what would that look like? Safe to say, most Iowans could not picture it, as Iran’s non-compliance with the NPT has been in the news here and along with Iran’s nuclear ambitions has come to characterize the country in the corporate media. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has furthered this characterization with his “stick in the eye” rhetoric about his country’s right to self-determination, especially as it relates to enrichment of uranium for nuclear power on Iranian soil. As long as Iran does not live up to the agreement it made in 1968 in the NPT, this image will be perpetuated.

Pursuant to stifling Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United Nations Security Council recently passed its fourth round of sanctions against the country. The United States and the European Union followed suit and passed their own sanctions, focusing on international banking and oil and gas. An item of interest is the focus on imports of gasoline to Iran. They sell crude oil and let others do the refining to meet roughly 30% of the country’s refined petroleum product needs. China is a key trading partner on gasoline and along with Russia has resisted UN and US led efforts to create sanctions.

Not to be outdone, in response to sanctions, Iran decided to boycott what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called “Zionist companies” such as Coca Cola, Intel, Nestle and Intel. The president recently signed an amendment to Iranian law that forbids airing of advertisements of prohibited international companies. While this is related to the sanctions, it is also driven by the “Palestinian Support Law,” in which Tehran seeks to support Palestinians while isolating Israel. A high level tit for tat plays out in the corporate media, preventing us from getting much beyond the idea that Iran has nuclear capacity and the west doesn’t like it.

Some argue that it’s time to step up diplomacy to thwart Iran’s nuclear program. A retired Marine Corps officer who lives near me developed a scenario in our weekly newspaper where the United States would detonate a tactical nuclear weapon in Iran if sanctions failed. Behind these arguments and scenarios is the basic idea that Iran has made enough enriched uranium for two nuclear weapons and they intend to build them despite repeated statements that they have no interest in nuclear weapons.

According to Newsweek Magazine, “over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were ‘un-Islamic.’ The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that ‘developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam.’”

One struggles to get past the deception that seems obvious in Iran’s non-compliance with the NPT, yet there is another, related story that we don’t hear enough about. It is the energy side of Iran’s trade relations. Petroleum comprises 80% of Iranian exports and Iran has substantial petroleum reserves. They import 30 percent of the refined petroleum products needed for domestic use and gasoline imports have been targeted for sanctions by the United States. China, India and others have been supplying Iran with these imports and the Washington Post describes sanctions on gasoline as a “fool’s errand.” As long as the global economy continues to be driven by hydro carbon fuels, sanctions against Iran, with its substantial oil reserves, seem unlikely to align their NPT compliance with expectations. For Iran, it seems to be about the oil and their nuclear program appears to support oil as much as anything.

The failure to resolve Iran’s NPT non-compliance is also a failure to understand the importance of energy independence to Iran’s economy and the steps they are taking to achieve that. One can relate to why the United States, with its oil addiction, can fail to see that Iran may understand what it takes to achieve energy independence and through its nuclear program is taking tangible steps towards that end. In order to capitalize on the value of its oil reserves, Iran may need to become independent from hydrocarbon fuels so they can sell their oil to those who are not.