Friday, April 13, 2012

Blockades and the danger of disaster



By Juan Cole
Asia Times

"As nuclear negotiators sit around the table this weekend, a full-scale financial blockade of Iran is raging outside. Even as economic powerhouses China and India decline to join, the escalation from crippling sanctions holds extreme dangers of spiraling into military confrontation, and fueling the bitterness and blowback seen after the Western campaign against Iran in the 1950s.....

As the sanctions morph into a virtual blockade, they raise the specter that all blockades do - of provoking a violent response. Just as dangerous is the specter that the sanctions will drag on without producing tangible results, impelling covert or overt American action against Tehran to save face. And that, friends, is where we came in. "

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