Russia-Ukraine squabble recently over natural gas pricing sent a tremor through Europe. One week ago, another tremor swept through the West when Iran broke open internationally monitored seals on its nuclear facilities, clearing the way for uranium enrichment activities.

Iran has signed deals to provide natural gas to two emerging powers: China and India. India embarked last year on a gas pipeline project with Iran; in 2004, China signed a $70 billion oil and natural gas deal with Tehran. Those alliances are just a sign of things to come.

That makes it much less likely that the United Nations Security Council, with China a permanent member, is ever going to agree to sanctions against Iran for pushing ahead with its nuclear programme. But what if US and Europe were able to persuade the Security Council to impose ban?

Well, slapping Iran with sanctions could very likely prompt Ahmadinejad to cut oil production in retaliation. Any drop in production from a supplier can send the price of oil soaring. America cannot win the war on terror as long as it is sending billions of dollars for oil

purchases. It cannot establish democracy in the Middle East because they do not want democracy. And it will never have the geopolitical leverage it needs as long as it is dependent on unstable foreign sources for fuel. — The New York Times