Are We Just to Go Along with US Sanctions on Iran?

America and the greater West are tightening their grip on Iran. The U.S. Treasury secretary has gone to Beijing to coax China to comply with the Iran oil embargo, while the European Union has pushed up the date of its vote to ban Iranian oil imports to Jan. 23. If America manages to enforce the embargo and block off the Strait of Hormuz, it will shake the world economy and deal a big blow to Korea.

Iran transports one third of the world’s oil by sea, while 20 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Korea not only gets 10 percent of its oil imports from Iran, but transports more than 80 percent of the oil it gets from the Middle East through the Strait of Hormuz. This makes Korea currently in danger of losing the hard-won economic and cultural bridgehead it has secured in the Middle East through relations with Iran.

American pressure on Iran – which has gone up considerably since the National Defense Authorization Act was enacted at the end of 2011 – is nothing new. While the U.S. claims its priority is to block nuclear weapons development, much analysis indicates that its true objectives are to maintain dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia, all the while keeping China in check. This reveals U.S. concerns that its withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan could potentially benefit Iran, the region’s strongest Islamic country. Should such concerns be warranted, American control over Middle Eastern oil will weaken, and Israel could be exposed to danger.

In the fervor of the Arab Spring, the West intervened in Libya. Reasonable commentary has started to speculate that the West has Iran in sight as its next target. Indeed, just as America implemented additional sanctions on Iran, it also sold $30 billion and $3.5 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. Current sanction-related tensions may end up solely benefiting big oil companies and the military-industrial complex of the U.S.

Since America and the greater West import almost no oil from Iran, they have little to lose from the embargo. But circumstances are different for Japan, China and Korea, which respectively obtain 13 percent, 22 percent and 10 percent of their crude oil from Iran. Korea in particular is left with very few options and a lot to lose. We must actively strive to decrease potential harms, including demanding that America make an exception for Korea. Korea also should not be driven to end relations with Iran. If we can’t leverage the highly touted “special” Korea-U.S. relationship in situations like this, of what use is it?