Are We Just to Go Along with US Sanctions on Iran?/Hankyoreh, South Korea

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Strutting our "tough" creds has a price.

http://watchingamerica.com/News/136745/are-we-just-to-go-along-with-us-sanctions-on-iran/

America and the greater West are tightening their grip on Iran. The U.S. Treasury secretary has gone to Beijing to coax China to comply with the Iran oil embargo, while the European Union has pushed up the date of its vote to ban Iranian oil imports to Jan. 23. If America manages to enforce the embargo and block off the Strait of Hormuz, it will shake the world economy and deal a big blow to Korea.

Iran transports one third of the world’s oil by sea, while 20 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Korea not only gets 10 percent of its oil imports from Iran, but transports more than 80 percent of the oil it gets from the Middle East through the Strait of Hormuz. This makes Korea currently in danger of losing the hard-won economic and cultural bridgehead it has secured in the Middle East through relations with Iran.

American pressure on Iran – which has gone up considerably since the National Defense Authorization Act was enacted at the end of 2011 – is nothing new. While the U.S. claims its priority is to block nuclear weapons development, much analysis indicates that its true objectives are to maintain dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia, all the while keeping China in check. This reveals U.S. concerns that its withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan could potentially benefit Iran, the region’s strongest Islamic country. Should such concerns be warranted, American control over Middle Eastern oil will weaken, and Israel could be exposed to danger.

In the fervor of the Arab Spring, the West intervened in Libya. Reasonable commentary has started to speculate that the West has Iran in sight as its next target. Indeed, just as America implemented additional sanctions on Iran, it also sold $30 billion and $3.5 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. Current sanction-related tensions may end up solely benefiting big oil companies and the military-industrial complex of the U.S.

[xchrom]

1. Smells like regime change.

The damage it does to others is 'acceptable risk'.

[bigtree]

2. most military deployments defend that oil flow in one way or the other

It's no coincidence that Saudi Arabia is the most vocal country supporting and encouraging sanctions on Iran's oil.

I will say this. Iran doesn't make it accommodating for Americans to sympathize with any predicament it might face because of U.S. economic action against their interests. China and Russia also bear responsibility for neglecting to sufficiently influence their trading partner to make reasonable concessions regarding transparency and accountability for their nuclear program.

That's not to say that I, personally, would take the same approach toward Iran. Their nuclear ambitions have been hyped into a 'nuclear weapons program' without any proof presented to the public about all of that.

But, you queried whether we were just 'going to go along' with it all. It's almost impossible to budge the timid and politically fearful Congress from their defensive attitude toward Iran. It's even more troubling defending Iran as their most visible leadership doesn't show any intention of adopting any policy or posture that Americans can willingly support or trust as reliable.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. It's the Koreans questioning whether they "should just go along".

I, personally, don't agree with the sanctions for a number of reasons. Number one being the very real possibility of them catapulting into another winless war for oil. What I'm pointing out by posting the article is that the saber rattling by both sides (and their allies) has consequences for some of the allies that are not welcome...or necessary. Not necessary in the sense that the sanctions may hurt the Iranians, of course that means the Iranian people, but it won't stop their nuclear program any more than our sanctions on Cuba brought down Castro.

[bigtree]

4. I think they're mostly part of the oil game. Most all of the aggression toward Iran is about oil

. . . even though it's cloaked in the ridiculous concerns about some attack from the sovereign nation.

I do think though, that sanctions haven't always been a pretext to war, like Bush regarded them as. I see these as more of an attempt to pressure countries like Russia and China to influence Iran and Korea to protect or preserve their own economic interests. Pretty naive stuff, if they actually believe in what's on the surface of the challenge. Pretty serious, if you consider these in the light of the overall struggle for economic dominance between these nations.

Hell, I'm cynical enough to believe that they don't think they need any concessions from Iran at all. Could be that they're benefiting enough from using Iran as their foil to serve either their oil game or their posturing against China. Even at that, you can't be sure that Clinton or Obama don't actually believe they're working to deter Iran's nuclear ambitions. Sanctions, as you say, would seem to be the least effective way to do that.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. I think a lot of this tough guy posturing is aimed at China..as are the sanctions.

Unfortunately, making oil more expensive for the Chinese also makes it more expensive for our "allies" and China is even less fond of being bullied than Iran. The Russians may end up being assigned the duty of being the adults and mediating the whole affair.

OTOH, how much of this "tough sanctions" stance is aimed at appeasing Israel and preventing them from doing something that could really ignite the fire? As in "We'll tut-tut and look constipated while you assassinate their scientists, and apply more useless sanctions, but overt military strikes are to be kept off the table by you and us."

[bvar22]

5. "If America manages to enforce the embargo and block off the Strait of Hormuz,"

Blockading the Strait of Hormuz IS an Overt Act of WAR.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
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