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As the U.S. preps further sanctions against the Iran, the rogue nation wants us to know, by the way, that it controls the Strait of Hormuz, through which, just so you know, a huge chunk of the world's oil supply flows. The AP says that one sixth of the world's oil is shipped through the strait, while The New York Times calls it about one fifth, but no matter -- it's a lot of oil, and Iran now wants to point out to the U.S. that it can easily close off the strait anytime it gets the urge. "If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz,” Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, Iran's vice president, said today, according to The Times.

In case that wasn't painfully clear, the head of navy reiterated that Iran has a lot of boats in the strait ready to block oil tankers, as the country is in the middle of a "war games" exercise there, according to the AP. Why all this talk about the Strait of Hormuz? The posturing is against the latest round of sanctions the Obama administration is ready to place on Iran--sanctions which have, until this one, "deliberately stopped short of targeting oil exports, which finance as much as half of Iran’s budget." Given that the U.S. wants to hit Iran where it hurts, Iran knows that even threatening to cut off oil supply is a blow to the U.S. "Oil traded close to the highest in six weeks after Iran threatened to block crude supplies through the Strait of Hormuz," Bloomberg reports this morning.

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