Until 2012, the leaders of the National Iranian Tanker Company relished their work, playing cat and mouse with the Western authorities as they tried to keep a portion of their fleet on the seas despite an array of economic sanctions. “We felt like the last line of defense of the country’s economy,” said Nasrollah Sardashti, the company’s commercial director. “The nation depended on us to get the oil out to the few markets we had left.” Back then, Iran cavalierly dismissed Western sanctions, saying the obstacles that the measures sought to erect were easily evaded. But beginning in 2012, when a new round of comprehensive sanctions took effect, commerce with much of the […]