Britain has joined the United States and France in sending a flotilla
of warships through the sensitive Strait of Hormuz in a pointed message
to the Iranian regime. The Ministry of Defense confirmed that a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate,
HMS Argyll, was part of the US-led carrier group to pass through the
waterway, as tensions continued to escalate over Tehran's nuclear
program. The strait, a 34-mile-wide sea passage, connects the
petroleum-producing Persian Gulf states to the ocean, making it a
strategic choke point on the world's economy. The EU gave preliminary approval to new sanctions against Iranian oil as of today. On the table is a total ban on European purchases of Iranian
oil - a sanction that would not just hit Iran but key EU buyers
including Greece, Italy and Spain. Sanctions are already expected against Iran's central bank. The full implementation of the sanctions would be delayed until July 1st, due to concerns about their impact on the European economy. The UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands had been leading calls
for nothing more than a three-month delay before the sanctions bite, but
Greece - which fears its economic woes will worsen if it cannot find
alternative suppliers at Iran-style preferential rates - has urged a
much longer phase-in to ease the pain. The embargo is yet to be formally approved by the EU nations' foreign ministers, who are meeting in Brussels. In response to the expected sanctions the Iranians have threatened to
close the strait - through which 35% of the world's tanker-borne oil
exports pass - in retaliation.
This sanction is starting to raise tension between the U.S. and Iran even more so and from a previous news report on this matter, it was said that if we were to continue to strong arm Iran, both China and Russia would have no choice but to intervene, possibly sparking a third world war. Foreign secretary William Hague (you know, the guy who said a peaceful way to calm down the revolutions that were taking place in Greece, Syria and Egypt throughout 2011 would be foreign interference [that dumb fuck]) is apparently urging Iran to "come to its senses" about our suppression to their way of life so they can resume negotiations on their nuclear program. Any bid by Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the
Gulf, through which 20% of the world's oil exports pass would be
"illegal" and "unsuccessful", Hague warned....which doesn't make full sense to me considering that we are the ones causing them to do such acts due to sanctions and threats from the Royal Navy and our own and if they threaten to fight back (take a look at what Cuba did to us when we tried to replace their Communist political/economic system with our capitalistic sense of bull shit, they fought back and won, and now they are barred because we feel like since they didn't allow us to control them, they are a threat to our world domination, ha!), they will be exposed to acts of war. And us provoking the cutting off of the use of Iran's oil only spells out doom and gloom for our economy (higher gas prices etc.).
As you can probably sense in my writing I'm a little worked up about this current topic. That's because I feel like once again, the U.S. is sticking it's nose in to where it doesn't belong. Apparently these sanctions are peaceful and legitimate measures, and not about conflict, says Hague to the Huffington Post, yet I can't help but feel that we are the ones causing these problems to happen. After all, the past has painted a pretty vivid picture of America's nasty role in foreign politics. This topic is still under development (cheers for follow up articles), but I'm putting this out there to make it aware that tensions in this world are rising, and we are the ones behind it all. Maybe there is more to this topic, maybe we have to strong arm them to get them to back off, although it doesn't seem like that's the case, Iraq was never a real threat to the United States, I highly doubt Iran is. We are worried that in their closing of the Strait, the world will not be able to function off of the oil that the strait provides, mind you they are doing it in retaliation to make us and EU back off. I'll let you do the figuring.
Here's an unbiased look at this topic (after all I feel I was just ranting to blow off some steam):
