The U.S. and Iran Are Already Locked in Economic War
Hard-hitting U.S. sanctions on Iran's central bank and new Iranian threats to attack U.S. vessels in a vital oil-shipping route underscore a little-noticed aspect of the growing tensions between Washington and Tehran: Armed conflict may not break out anytime soon, but Iran and the U.S. are already fighting a low-level economic war that seems likely to escalate in the months ahead.
Iran's apparent progress toward building both nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles capable of carrying them to targets in both Israel and Europe has prompted mounting speculation that Washington or Jerusalem will soon carry out full-scale military strikes against Iran, attacks likely to trigger a major regional conflict.
For now, that talk seems overblown. But the economic sparring between the U.S. and Iran is continuing to intensify, a sign that the two countries have ways of fighting each other that don't require the use of armed force. In the last month alone, Congress voted to directly target Iran's oil sector by isolating the country's central bank from the world financial system, and Iran threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz, the passageway for more than a fifth of the world's oil.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran flared even higher on Tuesday, with Iran warning that it would take unspecified actions if a U.S. warship returned to the Straits of Hormuz. "I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return," said Ataollah Salehi, chief of staff of the Iranian Army. "We are not in the habit of warning more than once."
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-us-and-iran-are-already-locked-in-economic-war/250872/
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