The answer is probably not to remind Iranians that, after 30 years, the Islamic Revolution has brought them economic deprivation and political oppression -- and not even enough gasoline to keep their cars running.

Those who oppose the use of such economic leverage make predictable arguments. For example, Hossein Askari, an Iranian-born, British-educated professor at George Washington University, asserts in the Harvard International Review that stopping the flow of gasoline to Iran "would hand the regime in Tehran a big favor."

By what act of wizardry does he transform pain into pleasure? He says the Iranian government would respond by raising the price for the gasoline it does have. "The government has tried for over two decades to eliminate this wasteful subsidy" on domestic gasoline, he writes, "but fear of a domestic backlash has precluded action. If the United States tries to ban Iran's gasoline imports, the regime would blame the ‘Great Satan' while forcing a tightening of belts."

But as the professor must know, the mullahs have always blamed the U.S. for Iran's woes. Fewer and fewer Iranians appear to be buying it. Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department in both the Bush and Obama administrations, has persuaded more than 80 international banks to stop doing business with Iran. This has exacerbated Iran's economic difficulties, but most Iranians appear to know who deserves the blame. In November 2008, a group of 60 Iranian economists bravely went on record condemning President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "tension-creating" foreign policy, pointing out that his approach had "scared off foreign investment and inflicted heavy damage on the economy."

And in the past, when gasoline has been in short supply, there has been rioting on Iran's streets and intensified anger at the theocrats who have established themselves as the country's wealthy and permanent elite.

It also should not escape notice that Askari has argued in favor of Iran's "legal right to enrich and to develop heavy water reactors." He has insisted that it is not Iran that menaces Israel -- but rather Israel that "openly threatens Iran." That, coupled with American hostility, he wrote, has caused Iran to "feel insecure, victimized and bullied." So if the mullahs seek nuclear weapons, he added, it is "to develop a deterrent in case of imminent threat."

Iran's militant Islamist mullahs have vowed "Death to America!" for three decades. They have ordered the slaughter of American servicemen in Beirut, at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and throughout Iraq. They are supplying advanced weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. They have established a client state in Syria, and they use Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist proxies. Those who persist in portraying them as victims requiring nuclear weapons as "deterrents" are entitled to their opinion. They have no right to be taken seriously -- and no one with any grasp of what is happening in the world today would do so.