This would be a policy of essentially privatizing the asset. We don't need a strategic petroleum reserve. We should have never created one in 1975 in the first place. We should sell the oil while the price is high and get out of the market forever. Again, it's a world supply and world demand for oil.
Oil is a commodity.
If the Iranians decide they don't want to sell oil to the United States, but they sell it to Japan, the price Americans pay for crude will be largely unaffected. The world supply and world demand will still equilibrate at roughly the same price, although supply lines may be reshuffled. In the 1970s oil prices catapulted largely because of fears of future cutbacks in production. The latest spike in energy prices is temporary. Prices in real terms for crude are still about half what they were in the energy crisis of the 1970s.