{"id":46166,"date":"2019-05-16T07:06:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46166"},"modified":"2019-05-16T07:06:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:06:22","slug":"maximum-pressure-in-the-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46166","title":{"rendered":"Maximum Pressure in the Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2019\/05\/16\/maximum-pressure-in-the-strait-of-hormuz\/\">Maximum Pressure in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Hegemons are never going to sound too sensible when they lock horns or joust in spats of childish anger.&nbsp; Power corrupts, not merely in terms of perspective but language, and making sense about the next move, the next statement, is bound to be challenging.&nbsp; Otherwise justified behaviour can be read as provocative; retaliatory moves duly rattle and disturb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Iran-US standoff is finding a surge of increments, provocations and howlers.&nbsp; Since the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 Iran Nuclear deal (the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/2165399\/full-text-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal.pdf\">Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action<\/a>) last year, Tehran has gnawed and scratched at the arrangements.&nbsp; Threats to close the Strait of Hormuz as a retaliation for frustrating Iranian oil sales have been made.&nbsp; President Hassan Rouhani last week made it clear that the Islamic republic&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/international\/archive\/2019\/05\/rouhani-iran-nuclear-deal-us\/589042\/\">would scale back<\/a>&nbsp;on certain JCPOA commitments.&nbsp;Limits on building up stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and heavy water would be abandoned.&nbsp; A 60-day period has been stipulated in the hope that the E3 (Britain, France and Germany), China and Russia provide relief for the Iranian oil and banking sector.&nbsp; More suspensions of compliance orders threaten to follow if the powers do not muck in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite not being part of the JCPOA anymore, the Trump administration persists in sticking its oar in the matter.\u00a0 In May 3, the State Department\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/r\/pa\/prs\/ps\/2019\/05\/291483.htm#.XMzgtgpDTjE.twitter\">explicitly warned<\/a>\u00a0it would sanction individuals and entities involved in swapping permitted uranium (enriched or natural) with Iran.\u00a0 Nor would excess heavy water limits be permitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With such moves to strangle Iran\u2019s economic feelers, it is little wonder that Rouhani has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/our-columnists\/is-trump-yet-another-us-president-provoking-a-war\">called<\/a>&nbsp;on \u201csurgery\u201d to be performed on the JCPOA, one far more effectual than \u201cthe painkiller pills of the last year\u201d.&nbsp; Such a process, he promised, was \u201cfor saving the deal, not destroying it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maximum Pressure in the Strait of Hormuz Hegemons are never going to sound too sensible when they lock horns or joust in spats of childish anger.&nbsp; Power corrupts, not merely in terms of perspective but language, and making sense about the next move, the next statement, is bound to be challenging.&nbsp; Otherwise justified behaviour can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15948,5493,20100,827],"class_list":["post-46166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-binoy-kampmark","tag-counterpunch","tag-jcpoa","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46167,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46166\/revisions\/46167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}