Word: straits
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...were delivered and its oil installations were seriously damaged, Iran would prevent any ships from entering or leaving the gulf (see map). Such a maneuver would have far-reaching consequences. Twenty percent of the non-Communist world's oil supplies pass through the 40-to-60-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz. More than 40% of Western Europe's oil imports and 13% of U.S. oil comes from the gulf, while Japan depends on the region for over 60% of its supply...
...government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini left no doubt of how it views the new development. "The Persian Gulfs jugular vein is in our hands," declared Iranian state radio. "Should an attempt be made to use the planes to damage Iran's vital resources, Iran would turn the Strait of Hormuz into a quagmire for the West's imperial objectives." Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Iranian parliament, put it more chillingly. If Tehran bottles up the gulf, he warned, "the West will have a very cold winter...
...Iranian government has warned that if its oil installations are threatened in any way, it will shut down ship traffic in the gulf by bottling up the entrance at the Strait of Hormuz. Such a move would seriously disrupt the lifeline of gulf oil, most notably from Saudi Arabia, to the rest of the world. About 50% of Japan's oil imports, nearly 40% of Western Europe's and 10% of the U.S.'s come from the region...
...victory made a major change in the political and strategic world picture on the western shore of the Pacific. From Bering Strait to the Gulf of Tonkin Communism was now the major force. The western world merely held sentinel positions in Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Indo-China, Malaya and Burma-all three in turmoil-lay beneath the Communist threat...
...Energy Agency (IEA), a 21-nation group created to coordinate worldwide responses to future oil crises. The high-stakes exercise began with a simulated telegram sent by the IEA secretariat in Paris announcing that 8 million bbl. daily had vanished from world pipelines. Reason: a hypothetical blockage of the Strait of Hormuz (not too farfetched in light of the three-year-old Iran-Iraq war) and sabotage of Nigerian oil facilities...