Iranian lawmakers to debate preempting EU oil ban with ban of their own

According to the Associated Press:

A law to be debated in Iran's parliament on Sunday could halt exports of oil to the European Union as early as next week, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a lawmaker as saying on Friday.

"On Sunday, parliament will have to approve a 'double emergency' bill calling for a halt in the export of Iranian oil to Europe starting next week," Hossein Ibrahimi, vice-chairman of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying.

Parliament is pushing for the export ban to deny the EU a 6-month phase-in of the embargo on Iranian oil that the bloc agreed on Monday as part of a raft of tough new Western sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The EU accounted for 18 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the first half of 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), making it Iran's second biggest customer after China.

"If the deputies arrive at the conclusion that the Iranian oil exports to Europe must be halted, the parliament will not delay a moment (in passing the bill)," Fars quoted Moayed Hosseini-Sadr, a member of parliament's energy committee, as saying.

"If Iran's oil exports to Europe, which is about 18 percent (of Iran's oil exports) is halted the Europeans will surely be taken by surprise, and will understand the power of Iran and will realize that the Islamic establishment will not succumb to the Europeans' policies," he said.

The Iranians are demonstrating they have potential cards to play in this environment of escalating hostility. And unlike Syria, they are not nearly as dependent on oil exports to Europe. More and more, the Iranians are pushed East at the expense of the West.

Above: Banned in Europe, this freshly overhauled for 2012 Iran Air Boeing 747-286BM will very soon be servicing routes to Asia.

Photo: Iman Asgari at Airliners.net

Dirham for Euro

Reports from Tehran indicate that the government is seriously considering switching payment for its crude oil from the euro to the UAE dirham. The Iranians believe that the swich would blunt the impact of EU’s financial sanctions against Iran.

Gates and the Iran Missile 'Threat'

By Mark Pyruz

US intelligence has shown Iran could launch an attack against Europe with "scores or hundreds" of missiles, prompting major changes to US missile defenses, Pentagon chief Robert Gates said on Thursday.

President Barack Obama in September cited a mounting danger from Iran's arsenal of short and medium-range missiles when he announced an overhaul of US missile defense plans.

The new program, called the "phased adaptive approach," uses sea and land-based interceptors to protect NATO allies in the region, instead of mainly larger weapons designed to counter long-range missiles.- AFP

I suppose the US IC is including Turkey and Israel in this threat projection, otherwise the geography makes little sense for the types of MRBM and numbers of SSMs possessed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Also unclear are any sort of first or second strike threat projections against Europe "proper" from potential (re: imagined) SSM forces of the IRI.

This sounds a lot like a military-industrial sales pitch, as well as a duplicitous rationale for US forces positioned in areas to maintain strategic dominance and counter Russian influence.

Iranian MRBMs are under-tested, and as such represent a deterrence force far more than any actual effective offensive capability. That is to say they are almost purpose-built primarily to counter the weekly threats of Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear power infrastructure.

Update: Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Vahidi's response to Gates.