Sure. Just like Jimmy Carter said the Soviet missiles discovered in Cuba in 1979 were "unacceptable." Then, voila! The "unacceptable" became "accepted."
An interesting tagline to a recent HotAir posting:
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/28/saudis-to-iranian-mullahs-well-keep-pounding-sand/
And Iran itself — which has enjoyed record oil profits over the past five years but is faced with a dwindling number of oil customers — relies on the Hormuz Strait as the departure gate for its biggest client: China.
“We would be committing economical suicide by closing off the Hormuz Strait,” said an Iranian Oil Ministry official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “Oil money is our only income, so we would be spectacularly shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that.”
Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a political scientist running for parliament from the camp of hard-line clerics and commanders opposing Ahmadinejad, said it is “good politics” for Iran to respond to U.S. threats with threats of its own.
“But our threat will not be realized,” Ardestani said. “We are just responding to the U.S., nothing more.”
Besides, the UAE — whose exports would be most impacted by an Iranian blockade of the strait — will shortly complete a pipeline that bypasses Hormuz altogether. They can pump 2.5 million barrels a day through the pipeline, which would more than negate Iranian action.
Any intel on this?
Israeli spyware sold to Iran
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/israeli-spyware-sold-to-iran-20111227-1pb26.html
Israel Didn’t Know High-Tech Gear Was Sent to Iran
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/israel-didn-t-know-high-tech-gear-was-sent-to-iran-via-denmark.html
Is this an old story? I have been offline for a couple of days.
OOOOOOOO - Obama’s talking tough.
That should put the fear of Obama in them.
/sarc
Need fast BBs Strait of Hormuz soonest.
Did they get the e-mail that Barack Hussein Obama was elected president?
Or else what? Hussein will go crying to the U.N.?
This is it.... I look for Iran to call our bluff....
This is the Jimmy Carter moment we’ve been waiting for. Obama will order our Navy to stand down and not confront Iran when the close down the Stait during their exercises. It’s a perfect ploy for Iran... They have nothing to lose to taunt the @ hole in the WH...
Mark my words...
Send them two kissing Sailors to straighten everything out!
I woudl think the Chinese would want to do something about this too, and maybe test some of their new Navy equipment, wouldnt they ? We dont get anywheere near as much oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz as they do and we could survive for a period of time if that Strait closed, they couldnt do it nearly as well. I think any cosying up to Iran they’ve been doing woudl come to a rapid end if the Strait was closed. It would be a scary sign of the times, though, to see the world looking to China to take care of business.
Did the Iranian threat to block the Strait come out of nowhere ? It seems quite random, even for these mental patients, to suddenly make this threat now. I wonder if Israel actually is doing something about the Iranian nuke facilities, and the Iranian govt naturally accused us of being connected with it and so they found this to be an opportune time for some easy saber rattling.
Stop it or we’ll intentionally ground an unmanned AC Carrier fully laden!!!
OMG!!! How dare we do something like this!!! /sarc
We are just going to keep pushing and pushing Iran to close off these Straights of Hormuz if we keep provoking them!!! /SARCASM