With gas prices reaching record highs in the United States, we decided to see what was happening here in Iran, so we went to a gas station and found that a gallon of gas costs only about 40 cents.

Not a real surprise given that Iran has the world's second largest oil reserve, but there's a hitch to all the low cost gas -- congestion.

With gas so cheap, everyone can afford it, which results in people here driving everywhere. This means traffic is heavy and congestion is building.

A big reason why gas is so cheap in Iran is because the government subsidizes it, but that could soon stop. The Iranian government is set to ration gas in the coming months, and if you want to buy above the allotted amount, the cost goes up five-fold.

Iranians we spoke to at the pump had differing opinions. Some said rationing will help force people to drive less and use public transportation more. Others said it would only deepen the country's economic divide, where the rich will be able to buy as much as they want and the poor will not.

The government wants to ration gas partly because Iran doesn't have a huge capacity to refine oil, even though it sits on so much of it. So Iran ends up importing 40 percent of its gas from other countries, mainly India. The less it has to import, the more self-reliant the country can become.

And then there's the larger issue looming amid the nuclear dispute between Iran and the West. Will Iran use oil as a weapon and cut its supply to cripple the West? Iranian leaders have said so far that's not the plan.

But at the gas station, many Iranians told us that if Iran is pushed into a corner, oil production is an asset they should use to their advantage.