Iran Threatens To Spike Oil Over Sanctions

The Washington Times reports:

The head of Iran's central bank warned that oil prices will rise above $150 a barrel if economic sanctions against the Islamic theocracy are not lifted soon.

“Iran can have an effect on world energy and fuel. Fuel prices will go up dramatically,” Mahmoud Bahmani said in a recent interview with The Washington Times at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

“If sanctions are not removed, particularly sanctions against banks and other economic sanctions, the price of oil will go above $150 a barrel.”

A top Federal Reserve official predicted last month that such a price could drive gasoline above $4 a gallon and throw the U.S. economy into another recession. The last time oil came close to that price was in the global recession that began in 2008, when a barrel of crude hit more than $147 in July of that year.

Mr. Bahmani’s veiled threat prompted a leading Republican senator to compare the country’s central bank officials to “bankers to the Nazis.”

“It should be the policy of the United States to bankrupt the central bank of Iran,” said Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois.

Mr. Kirk — a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs subcommittee on security, international trade and finance — said he is urging the Obama administration to investigate the bank’s suspected links to “terrorism and human rights abuses.”

Click here to read more.