Sanctions on Iranian Oil are Working

The New York Times prints a textbook funny joke in a story reporting on how Iran's numbers about oil production are consistently proven untrue. Shot:

Mr. Qasemi, a former Revolutionary Guards commander who was appointed oil minister more than a year ago, had consistently asserted that Iran had no problem selling its oil. In September, in an address to the Parliament, he said that oil exports were rising, despite outside data that showed a sharp drop. At other times, he has threatened to halt all oil exports in retaliation for the sanctions, apparently in a vain effort to raise oil prices by frightening global oil traders. 

And chaser:

Both the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Iran is a major member, and the International Energy Agency, a group of mostly Western oil-importing countries, have reported that Iran’s crude exports fell to roughly a million barrels a day by the end of 2012, compared with 2.4 million a year earlier. ... The Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted the minister as telling lawmakers that “there has been a 40 percent decrease in oil sales and a 45 percent decrease in repatriating oil money.” The agency also quoted him as forecasting further decreases without specifying how much.