Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Yes Or No?...Do We Or Don't We?
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Old 06-17-2012, 03:42 PM
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Default Russia and China's Response?

Quote:
Originally Posted by BBQMan View Post
...The only sanction left that can potentially move Iran from its intent to possess nuclear weapons is a blockade. No petroleum products or weapons either into or out of Iran. We still have this capability, but must be ready for reaction from the rest of the world, particularly Russia and China. President Obama has not, to date, been willing to stand up to pressure from Putin. This has not been a good thing and certainly would not be helpful in such a showdown. The situation is strikingly similar to that faced by President Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis.

The choice appears to be a blockade and potentially a conventional war now or a nuclear war involving strikes against Israel, Iran and the US. Iran will certainly not hit the ‘Little Satan’ without concurrent strikes against the ‘Great Satan’. No easy choices remain.
Great summary of the situation; probably pretty accurate.

The question regarding a blockade, which is significantly different from Kennedy's situation with Cuba, is the "outbound stuff" from Iran. Presumably, they are shipping lots of oil to both Russia and China and neither would be terribly happy about a U.S.-allied blockade of Iran.

A blockade of Iran's outbound shipments of oil would obviously be at the Straight of Hormuz. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that almost all of their shipments of oil to Russia and China go thru there. It's probably not reasonable to think that Iran could negotiate a way to ship oil overland from their northern borders thru Armenia and Georgia to get to the Black Sea (to supply Russia), so the naval blockade might work.

Trying to blockade the Straight of Hormuz might be kind of wild and wooly--trying to separate the Iranian tankers from all the other tankers shipping oil from Saudi Arabia and Iraq out to the world. Kind of like picking all the cars from Michigan headed north on I-75 on the first of April. And then, what does the commander-in-chief do if Russia and China choose to have their warships (of which they have plenty) ride shotgun with the tankers coming out of Iran with "their" oil? A major naval war? Not likely.

Then there's the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which sets the international rules on the use of the 25-mile wide straight. To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although not all countries have ratified the convention, most countries, including the U.S., accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention. Do we suddenly "change our mind" on this well-respected international law?

Not exactly the same situation that Kennedy faced blockading Cuba.