WASHINGTON — President Biden said Thursday that the US is “discussing” the possibility of Israel bombing Iranian oil facilities as payback for a volley of nearly 200 rockets fired at the Jewish state on Tuesday — causing a spike in global crude prices.
Biden said the oil strike option was under consideration when asked directly by a reporter as he left the White House.
“We’re discussing that. I think that would be a little … anyway,” the retiring 81-year-old president said, trailing off as he departed the White House for a day trip to Florida and Georgia to tour damage from Hurricane Helene.
Within 45 minutes of Biden’s remark, crude oil futures spiked to about $74 per barrel from an opening price of $70.10, before settling back to around $73.
When a reporter asked Biden if he would allow Israel to retaliate against Tehran, Biden said, “First of all, we don’t ‘allow’ Israel. We advise Israel. And there is nothing going to happen today.”
In a similar exchange Wednesday, Biden told reporters that he opposes a hypothetical Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent Tehran from developing atomic weapons, which the theocratic regime is believed to be close to doing.
A strike on Iran’s oil could result in significant environmental impacts, including a surge in greenhouse gas emissions — creating a potentially awkward political situation for Biden, who has blamed such emissions for the recent deadly hurricane strike on the Southeast.
However, the US did not take action to deter or sanction Ukraine’s government for allegedly blowing up Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea in 2022, which caused methane emissions equivalent to several days’ worth of normal global consumption of fossil fuels.
The White House has vowed to punish Iran for its latest attack on Israel — which follows a similar barrage in April — but has not committed to more tightly enforcing sanctions on Iran’s lucrative oil exports.
Oil exports by Iran are up significantly, but squeezing that flow could cause global energy prices to increase ahead of the Nov. 5 election, potentially harming Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy because the party in power generally gets the blame for such hikes.
A group of 62 House members — including prominent Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California — asked Biden in January to fully enforce US sanctions on Iranian oil sales after those exports surged to roughly triple Iran’s annual output in 2019 and 2020 under former President Donald Trump.
“Iran now exports more than 1.4 million barrels of crude oil daily, over 80% of which goes to China. From February 2021 to October 2023, the regime has taken at least $88 billion from these illicit oil exports,” wrote the group.
“Iran is deriving significant economic benefits from pervasive sanctions evasion, with Iran’s annual economic growth increasing by more than four percent and net foreign currency reserves up by 45[%].”
Republicans in Congress separately have asked Biden to cancel a sanctions waiver allowing Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, which they estimate will allow Iran access to $10 billion.
Iran’s Tuesday attack on Israel largely failed, causing little damage and no Israeli deaths due to the fact that the American, Jordanian and Israeli militaries shot down the ballistic missiles.
The heightened tensions between Israel and Iran come after Israel’s stunning assassination Sept. 27 of longtime Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with an airstrike in Beirut.
Israel killed Nasrallah, who was responsible for organizing decades of terrorist and cross-border attacks, after a sophisticated, weeks-long campaign to wipe out Hezbollah’s leadership, including by detonating thousands of electronic pagers carried by the group’s operatives on Sept. 17.
A possible Israeli counterstrike on Iran would come near the anniversary of Iran-backed Hamas terrorists infiltrating southern Israel last Oct. 7 and killing about 1,200 people, triggering the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.
