Iran’s parliament, Majlis, has delayed taking action on a proposed bill to immediately cut oil deliveries to Europe in retaliation for an EU oil embargo that were to go into full effect in July. A spokesman for Majlis’s energy committee said no proposed legislation had come to the parliament floor. The Iranian media had reported yesterday that the legislation would go to Majlis floor on Sunday on “double emergency” track, meaning the legislators would have been able to vote on it after a shortened debate.
Earlier today, the German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had called the Iranian threat to immediately halt oil exports to Europe “a regrettable and dangerous escalation in rhetoric.” He added the EU would find ways “to compensate for (Iran oil) delivery stoppages.” [AFP, 29 January].
Read this article by Pepe Escobar:
ReplyDeleteAsia Times Online: The Iranian oil embargo blowback
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA28Ak05.html
THE ROVING EYE
The Iranian oil embargo blowback
By Pepe Escobar
If the sorry parade of European poodles - or what analyst Chris Floyd delightfully dubbed Europuppies - had any understanding of Persian culture, they would have known that blowback for their declaration of economic war in the form of an Iranian oil embargo would be nothing short of heavy metal. Better yet; death metal.
The Iran issue cannot be handled through ideology. Expressions such as “Europuppies”, as delightful as they might be for you, does not alleviate the hardship suffered by Iran and its people because of the tightening sanctions imposed on the country.
ReplyDeleteThe so-called “left” might be indeed looking forward to protracted “anti-imperialist” and “anti-neo-colonialist” struggles of Iran against the West, but the Iranian nation has to look after its own interests and does not let sloganeering, such as “death metal” theory, fools it into believing that it could defeat the “Europuppies” militarily.
War with the West is not in the national interest of Iran. And I do not believe Pepe Escobar’s point of departure is Iran’s national interests.
Anon 11:35 AM
ReplyDeleteYou obviously don't live or come from Iran.
Mr Uskowi you are correct.