Iran -- humor in the strangest of places

Today's news brings word of the statement issued by the Foreign Ministry of Iran in which it warned European countries other than the UK not to get involved with the current upset between those two countries. Here is part of the statement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman: "The British government is trying to extend to other European countries the problem between the two of us, but of course we have told European countries not to subject their ties with us to the kind of problems that existed between Iran and Britain."

This is hilarious stuff. An Iranian mob composed mostly of Basij militia storm the British embassy, steal confidential materials and destroy what remains. The Iranian police and military stand by and watch the attack take place. The British diplomats and their dependents flee out the back of the embassy and return to the UK. At that point, the Iranians saw no problem with events. Of course, then the Brits order all the Iranians at the embassy in London out of the country and close the Iranian embassy. Still there is no problem in Teheran. Then, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and some other countries pull their ambassadors from Teheran. Now the mullahs start to worry that maybe they went too far. Of course, rather than an apology to the UK for the total violation of international law, Iran chooses to warn the other Europeans not to side with Britain. It is really funny.

To top it all off, the US Senate passed a bill that would prohibit US financial companies from doing business with entities that deal with Iran. This bill, if passed into law would effectively end the ability of Iran to sell its oil easily in the world market. There are not many companies out there that would choose the Iranian market over the American one. president Obama, of course, opposes the bill even though it passed the senate by a vote of 100 to 0. It will be interesting to see if the House passes it. If so, my guess is that Obama will be forced to sign it. I doubt that he would risk having a veto overturned, especially by the Democrats in the Senate.