ANOTHER OIL EMBARGO?

On Nov. 9, the Ayatollah Khomeini (may Allah reward him, he did more than any of us to bring down the disastrous Carter administration) claimed to have made all military and financial preparations to close the Straits of Hormuz through which oil tankers must carry their cargo from Iraq, with which Iran is at war, and from Saudi Arabia, the paymaster of Iraq (and of most troublemakers and terrorists in the Middle East).

He is talking through his turban, of course. The straits have two navigation channels, each two miles wide, and up to 300 ft deep. Iran does not have the capability to block them physically. If it mined them, even a power as lethargic as the US would be moved to sweep them, and Congress might even be persuaded to approve countermeasures if tankers were attacked by gun fire from ships or shore.

The best this "real holy man" (as Andrew Young described him) could probably do is causing temporary damage and uncertainty, for example, by setting an oil tanker ablaze in the Gulf, frightening away other tankers and, more importantly, their insurors. Even so, Western oil stocks are high, and the Saudis have recently completed a new pipeline to the Red Sea.

So why the funny title of this item?

Of the 5 million barrels/day imported by the US last year only 0.84 mb/d (17%) came from Arab OPEC members; but some 1.5 megabarrels/day, or 30% of US imports, came from another area: Central America and the Carribean (led by Mexico .684, Venezuela .408, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico .364).

And who would embargo that?

Well, how about the turkeys on Capitol Hill whose only enemy in the area is the elected government of El Salvador? Some of them can't see the difference between Grenada and Afghanistan; why should they see the difference between off and soda pop?

[Oil imports taken from 1982 Annual Energy Review, Report DOE/EIA-0384 (82), $6.50 from GPO, Washington, DC 20402.]