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Exclusive: EU agrees to embargo on Iranian crude Photo 1:30pm EST By Justyna Pawlak and Parisa Hafezi BRUSSELS/TEHRAN (Reuters) - European governments have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil, EU diplomats said Wednesday, dealing a blow to Tehran that crowns new Western sanctions months before an Iranian election. The prospective embargo by the European Union, along with tough U.S. financial measures signed into law by President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve, form a concerted Western campaign to hold back Iran's nuclear program. Iran says the program is strictly non-military, but Western countries say a November U.N....

White House: Iran making threats on the Strait of Hormuz because it’s weak By Jeremy Herb - 01/03/12 04:41 PM ET In yet another ratcheting-up of the back-and-forth between the United States and Iran on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Iran is making threats on the Strait of Hormuz because it’s “in a position of weakness.” “It’s the latest round of Iranian threats and it’s confirmation that Tehran is under increasing pressure for its continued failure to live up to its international obligations,” Carney said at Tuesday’s press briefing. “Iran is isolated and seeking to divert attention...

Last week, as many Americans took to the skies and roads to visit with family and friends for the New Year's holiday, the Islamic Republic of Iran unleashed a torrent of threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping channel vital to transporting one third of the world's crude oil. On Tuesday, Iranian Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi warned that "not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz" if the West imposed new sanctions against the country's oil sector. Wednesday brought a boast from Iran's navy chief, who said that the Islamic Republic could close...

Tehran said it will test-fire missiles in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, a move likely to stoke tensions with Washington already running high over Iran's threats to close the strategic oil waterway if sanctions are enforced. "Shorter- and longer-range, ground-to-sea, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles will be tested on Saturday," the ISNA news agency quoted Iran's navy spokesman, Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi, as saying on Friday. Iran, which has been carrying out war games in the Strait of Hormuz over the past week, has said that "not a drop of oil" would pass through the strait if Western governments follow through...

Tehran said it will test-fire missiles in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, a move likely to stoke tensions with Washington already running high over Iran's threats to close the strategic oil waterway if sanctions are enforced. "Shorter- and longer-range, ground-to-sea, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles will be tested on Saturday," the ISNA news agency quoted Iran's navy spokesman, Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi, as saying on Friday. Iran, which has been carrying out war games in the Strait of Hormuz over the past week, has said that "not a drop of oil" would pass through the strait if Western governments follow through...

Amid a verbal row with the United States over blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route, Iran proclaimed on Friday that it will start testing long range missiles in the Persian Gulf. "On Saturday morning the Iranian navy will test several of its long-range missiles in the Persian Gulf," navy deputy commander Admiral Mahmoud Moussavi told Fars news agency.

Iran claimed to have taken surveillance footage of a US aircraft carrier near the Strait of Hormuz as both countries raised the stakes in their standoff over the key oil route. ************************************************** Video at the link:***************************************The commander of Iran's navy said the reconnaissance mission was proof that his fleet had "control over the moves by foreign forces" but it was unclear what intelligence could be derived from the grainy video, which was played triumphantly on state television.

Iran's navy chief warned Wednesday that his country can easily close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the passageway through which a sixth of the world's oil flows. It was the second such warning in two days. On Tuesday, Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi threatened to close the strait, cutting off oil exports, if the West imposes sanctions on Iran's oil shipments. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/28/iran-warns-closing-strategic-hormuz-oil-route/#ixzz1huJzqZxx

US Sends Aircraft Carrier Into The Strait Of Hormuz, As Iran Beats Its Chest Robert Johnson Dec. 29, 2011, 7:56 AM USS John C. Stennis Iran has announced it located a U.S. aircraft carrier moving into the Strait of Hormuz during Iranian wargame exercises. The AFP reports Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi, spokesman for the exercises, says the carrier was spotted by an Iranian reconnaissance plane that took photos and video. A spokesperson for the U.S. Fifth Fleet confirmed the carrier is the USS John C. Stennis, a nearly 1,100 foot nuclear powered craft with unlimited range and 3 million gallons of...

Commentary: Oil traders put a lid on Iran’s threats to shut HormuzSAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Whom are you going to believe? Reuters Iranian Navy Commander Habibulah Sayari points to a map during a Dec. 22 news conference in Tehran. Iran is once again making lots of noise about shutting the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf that carries about a third of the world’s oil-tanker traffic. Iran’s vice president claims the Iranians might have to clear shipping from the channel while they conduct a 10-day naval exercise there, a little flexing of military muscle to make the...

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- The Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet said it will not allow Iran to disrupt oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported Wednesday. "The free flow of goods and services through the Strait of Hormuz is vital to regional and global prosperity," said a fleet spokesman quoted by Reuters. "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated," the spokesman added. Iranian officials have repeatedly said they would close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic if the U.S. and its...

(CNN) -- The U.S. Navy said Iran's threat to block the strategically and economically important Strait of Hormuz is unacceptable. "The free flow of goods and services through the Strait of Hormuz is vital to regional and global prosperity," Navy 5th Fleet in Bahrain spokeswoman Cmdr. Amy Derrick Frost told reporters on Wednesday. "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated." The 34-mile-wide shipping channel leads in and out of the Persian Gulf between Iran and Oman. It is strategically important because tankers...

Iranian naval chief Habibollah Sayyari said Wednesday that "Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say it will be easier than drinking a glass of water." Parisa Hafezi of Reuters reports Sayyari then topped this off by saying that while his forces could do this at any time, there was currently no need, as they control the Sea of Oman and therefore all shipping through the strait. Iran's threats Tuesday to close the strait sent oil prices up close to 2%, but it won't last. Oil analyst Thorbjoern bak Jensen, with...

Iran today threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the United Nations imposes sanctions on Iranian oil as a response to Iran’s sketchy uranium enrichment program, according to a report from Reuters. Iran has defiantly expanded nuclear activity despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions meted out since 2006 over its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to U.N. nuclear inspectors and investigators.Many diplomats and analysts believe only sanctions targeting Iran’s lifeblood oil sector might be painful enough to make it change course, but Russia and China - big trade partners of Tehran – have blocked such...

Iranian state and semi-official media lined up behind the regime this week in a show of nationalistic pride as Iran’s navy began 10 days of war games designed to showcase its “regional dominance” and display its ability to shut off the crucial Strait of Hormuz if threatened. Naval spokesmen were quoted as saying the “Velayat 90” maneuvers, the biggest ever of their kind, were being held across a vast area from the Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden – waters stretching between Somalia in the west, the Indian subcontinent in the east, and Oman and Yemen to the...

As the rest of the world enjoys Festivus or whatever celebration one indulges in, Iran is launching a "massive" 10 day war games naval exercise right in the belly of the beast. From Xinhua: "Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari on Thursday announced the upcoming launch of ten-day massive naval exercises in the international waters, the local satellite Press TV reported. Sayyari said at a press conference on Thursday that the naval maneuvers dubbed Velayat 90 will start on Saturday and will cover an area of 2,000 (1,250-mile) km stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in...

Brian is sitting in for Tim Conway, Jr. Paulbots call in and refuse to give an answer about what Ron Paul would do if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. They simply go through the talking points of all the bad things we have done. LISTEN ONLINE TO KFI

Energy Independence: As our enemy Iran threatens to close a vital waterway for the shipping of oil, plans for a secure, job-creating supply from our ally Canada gather dust on the president's desk. The blustering threat from the quite mad Iranian mullahs and their supremely mad leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be just a bluff, but then again it might not. It may just be an attempt to intimidate and poke the eye of an American president perceived as weak and whose failure to support and exploit the "Iranian Spring" of 2009 may come back to bite us. These are not...

(JTA) -- Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz if its oil exports are subjected to foreign sanctions, the Islamic Republic's official news agency reported. "If they impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Straits of Hormuz," IRNA quoted Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Iran's first vice-president, as saying, referring to Western countries. Oil from Persian Gulf countries travels through the Straits of Hormuz on its way to oil-importing countries around the world. The strait is the Persian Gulf's only outlet and is bordered by Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The Obama debacle continues on... Iran has threatened to halt traffic through the strait if the West moves to toughen sanctions including an oil embargo to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program. The strait is the passageway for about a third of the world’s seaborne-traded oil last year, according to US Energy Department data. “Iran has total control over the strategic waterway,” Iranian Naval Commander Admiral Habibollah Sayari told Iran’s Press TV yesterday as the Iranian navy conducted a 10-day exercise in international waters. “Closing the Strait of Hormuz is very easy for Iranian naval forces.” “The free flow...