An Italy without oil would come to a halt. The top five countries that we import it from are Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Libya and Russia. Italy was Libya’s main partner. Now since the war with Gaddafi (today one of his former Ministers is President ...) it counts like the two of spades. The commercial influence in the area has shifted to Washington and Paris. With Libya we behaved no differently from in the world wars. We bombed a country with which we had a peace treaty. Turncoat as a vocation. Now it’s Iran’s turn. It’s a country from which Italy imports 13% of its crude oil each year and one with which ENI has always traded well. At the Farnesina Palace a few days before Christmas, while they were merrily sorting out how to take the maximum amount of cash from pensioners, there was a meeting with the presence of, among others, representatives from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy (there was also an EU civil servant as window dressing) to discuss sanctions on Iran. A joke. Representatives of the European countries discussing with the EU that represents them. In foreign policy, the EU should have a single voice. Basically sanctions against Iran mean an embargo. There’s no further purchase of their oil so that they cannot invest the profits in rearmament. Italy, even though it is agreeing to this, has invoked the “pregresso” : credits it has with Iran that would allow it to import crude oil even during the embargo. Touché! Iran has not been pleased with the sanctions that would strangle its economy and it has threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz, which sees the transit of 17 million barrels a day, that’s 20% of the oil traded in the world and just to be safe, it has been testing its long range missiles. The United States has responded by sending the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis. The Pentagon explained that “It’s a matter of movements that take place regularly to guarantee the stability of the region”. If the Straits of Hormuz were to be blocked even for a short wh, the price per barrel would shoot up to 150 dollars (the average for 2011 was 100). The Americans stabiise the countries where there’s the presence of their interests. The planet is theirs. Whereas, the EU, like a fixed star, just stays and watches. China and Russia have declared that they cannot tolerate an intervention by the United States against Iran. Hormuz like Gdańsk? Italy doesn’t have to worry. It has no foreign policy but it is claiming “crediti pregressi”.

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