On Friday, a Washington Post fact checker gave GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul three "Pinocchios" for claiming the United States is blockading Iran during the NBC debate in Tampa on January 23.
During that debate, Paul said:
"We're blockading [Iran]. Can you imagine what we would do if somebody blockaded the Gulf of Mexico? That would be an act of war. So the act of war has already been committed and this is a retaliation. But besides, there's no interest whatsoever for Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz. I mean, they need it as much as we do. I mean, so you have to put that in a perspective. But this whole idea that we have to go to war because we've already committed an act by blockading the country, I agree with Newt (that “the American people have no interest in going to war anywhere.”)”
But has the United States really imposed a blockade on Iran?
The Washington Post adds:
Paul’s assertions are curious considering that the United States is not involved in a literal blockade of Iran, nor of any other part of the world right now. In fact, the U.S. hasn’t participated in a blockade since the Bosnian War of the 1990s, when NATO forces tried to stop supplies from reaching rival factions through the Adriatic Sea.
However, the United States has imposed a long list of sanctions against Iran, starting with a 1979 executive order that froze the Islamic Republic’s assets after U.S. Embassy officials were seized as hostages. The most recent example is an embargo against the Central Bank of Iran, approved as part of the National Defense Authorization Act that President Obama signed on New Year’s Eve.
Josh Hicks writes that Paul "appears to be equating these sanctions with blockades, but the connection is purely philosophical."
Paul himself has said several times that the United States should reach out to Iran in friendship, instead of imposing sanctions.
But the Washington Post found no grounds for Paul's assertion that the United States is imposing a blockade of Iran, and cites the U.S. Navy’s “Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations.”
Blockade is a belligerent operation to prevent vessels and/or aircraft of all nations, enemy as well as neutral, from entering or exiting specified ports, airfields, or coastal areas belonging to, occupied by, or under the control of an enemy nation.While the belligerent right of visit and search is designed to interdict the flow of contraband goods, the belligerent right of blockade is intended to prevent vessels and aircraft, regardless of their cargo, from crossing an established and publicized cordon separating the enemy from international waters and/or airspace.
The Post goes on to explain that the United Nations does allow sanctions under Article 41, and the U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on the country four times since 2006, as that nation refuses to halt uranium enrichment.
Seven other countries - Canada, Japan, Switzerland, India, Israel, Australia and South Korea - have also imposed sanctions on Iran.
Some argue that sanctions are counterproductive, but for Paul to characterize them as a "blockade" is irresponsible rhetoric, at best.
The Post concludes:
...we found no basis for Paul’s conflation of the words “blockade” and “sanction.” One could forgive the congressman for choosing the wrong term in the heat of a debate, but the fact that he said “blockading” twice suggests he chose his language deliberately.
Yet under any definition of the word, the United States is not blockading Iran. Instead, Iran has threatened to cut off the world from international waters off its coast, though in recent days it appears to have backed off that threat.
Overall, Paul mischaracterized and exaggerated the actions the U.S. has taken to dissuade Iran from continuing its nuclear program. A presidential candidate should be more careful about making such allegations about U.S. actions.
More on Ron Paul at Examiner.com can be found here.
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