Sense of how our sanctions turned Iran eastward, or just globalization?

THE WORLD: “Faith in a Windfall: Oil cash may prove a shaky crutch for Iran’s Ahmadinejad,” by Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 7-13 July 2008, p. 20.

Per my recent column disparaging Ahmadinejad’s rule, a good article on how shaky the economy is.

What catches my eye is eastern slant of oil exports: of the 2.5 million barrels of oil exported per day, Japan, China, India, South Korea and Taiwan (ranked 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9, respectively) account for 56% all by themselves.

Actually, that share is almost exactly the norm for the region as a whole, which underlies the difficulty of the West trying to isolate Iran on its oil. Like the rest of the PG, that horse has already left the barn.