they are starting to you see agitation in ahmadinejad s announcement. eric: why is gallon of gasoline $3.52 today? dana: you are the expert. there are a lot of reasons but partly because people are nervous. eric: sanctions aren t working. switch to nuclear enrichment plans. bob: of course. the way they re working is not selling the oil. stabilization in the economy. they have had a terrible situation. it s starting to crack apart. you know what? greg: geithner and krugman, worse tan any sanctions. the economy would crumble. i m trying to figure out what is working. if that is working stop working. bob: you don t take in account the bush administration and administration both let iran know in no uncertain terms that the nuclear strike on israel you will cease to exist. andrea: in no uncertain terms? 1967 border did not bob: they don t come and tell you, andrea, that, they
the switch on the nuclear plant and showing the bird to israel. they are announcing that they are ready, able and able to drop a bomb on iran. how does the tension translate to high gas prices here? take a look at the telestrator. we broke out the telestrator for the first time. check out the world s most sensitive and dangerous oil choke point. 17 million-barrels pass through the strait of hormuz. more than 20% of all the world s consuming ability. all the production in the world passes right through the area there. 20 miles wide. here is the problem, though. here is the greg: i want an aisle seat. eric: you can come over and look. i will let you draw on this. iran, one side. saudi arabia on the other side. the problem is iran says and they try to in the past that they want to cut off the 20-mile choke point, that would mean the oil prices would skyrocket. and my guess, guys that would happen $10 a gallon.
they re fine. dana: i used to talk about this issue a lot. it s probably unfair to president obama and the white house to say they haven t paid a lot of attention to it. think they probably have. it s been behind the scenes. i don t think there is any question now as a lot of the intel people for a long time cautioned everybody to say the possible nuclear weapons program in iran. i think that s over. i think we know they have one. the question is why now? why aren t the sanctions working? the e.u. and the united states now realize israel is not bluffing. israel s clock, they are looking at is within the next couple of months, they want to see a complete freeze on the nuclear program. if they don t have that, they are concerned. so the e.u. extraordinary step of embargo. and the united states is backing them very strongly. and there is not a lot of slack in the market. that is the problem. eric: that is a huge problem.
to the market for long-term things but go back to why now? the clock speeded up. i think that they realize now israel is not bluffing. i always understood israel would not act if they thought united states had its back. unfortunately in the last few years you had a breakdown if trust on the political level. i still think the military has trust but on the political level there is tension. bob: there is tension. remember that the united states, cia and assad taken out the nuclear engineers. and some bold moves. i think we will find out in the report, the marketable things going on. one thing that the aircraft carriers are moving in place is not just to protect the strait of hormuz but to backup israel in case of a dana: yeah. andrea: take at it step further. safe that israel does act. are we confident that the europeans with us have the stomach for conflict in the middle east? are we going to have their back?
bob: sure. we ll ensure not a plain takes off from iranian soil to intercept the israeli planes. we will provide command and control facilities and ensure that strait of hormuz remains open. eric: can i ask why do you think sanctions are working? bob: why? dana: i know why. dana: iranian currency is valued at half of what they were. dana: they changed it. went after the central bank. eric: what is working? it s $102 a barrel for the first time ever in february. what is working? bob: what does it have to do with anything? eric: how is the sanction against iran working bob: so we shouldn t have sanctions against iran? eric: personally, i ll ask you guys but i think obama should go to israel and say look, you go, we have your back. dana: a former colleague and friend of mine runs united against nuclear iran. they helped write the new sanctions bill that went in place. they do look at that. in the past few weeks you start going after the particular money men in ch