Source: Asia Times.

By Pepe Escobar

No one ever lost money betting on the foolishness of European Union (EU) politicos. And if you are an oil trader, rejoice – all the way to the bank; as expected, EU foreign ministers – meekly following the Barack Obama administration – have given a green light for a full Iranian oil embargo.

The embargo applies not only to new contracts but also existing contracts – to be voided by July 1, and includes extra sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and petrochemical exports to the EU.
It’s always crucial to remember the embargo – a de facto European declaration of economic war – was forcefully proposed in the first place by the neo-Napoleonic “liberator” of Libya, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy. The official EU excuse for theeconomic war is “serious and deepening concerns over the Iranian nuclear program”.

It didn’t help that Moscow had already warned the EU to stop acting as mere pawns of Washington – once again shooting themselves in their Ferragamo-clad feet. The Russians know all there is to know about how this embargo may horribly backfire.

The EU defends its strategy – or economic war – as the only way to avert “chaos in the Middle East”. Yet the economic war may end up sparking the full-blown war it is theoretically trying to avert; talk about an array of unintended consequences waiting in the wings.

And that leads us straight to the Strait of Hormuz drama. Tehran has repeatedly said that it would close Hormuz only if – and we should repeat – only if Iran is blocked from exporting its oil. This would represent a deathblow to the Iranian economy – totally dependent on oil exports – not to mention the regime controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Regime change is the real agenda of Washington and its European poodles (see The myth of ‘isolated Iran’ Asia Times Online, January 19) – but that cannot be spelled out to global public opinion.

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