Voice of America wrote on January 23, 2012:

"The European Union has imposed an oil embargo on Iran, effective July 1 - taking away 20 percent of Iran’s current oil sales. The embargo is intended to increase pressure on Iran’s government to allow inspections to ensure its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, as Iran's leaders say it is.

"The ban on importing oil from Iran was unanimously approved by the 27 European Union foreign ministers during a meeting in Brussels Monday. Its effective date was delayed to give some members time to implement existing contracts and to enable the ministers to review Iran’s reaction, and any change in its behavior, before putting the ban into force.  But EU members will not sign any more contracts for Iranian oil, effective immediately.

"The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said the embargo is aimed at convincing Iran to return to talks about its nuclear program.

“'I hope that Iran will respond positively to the letter that I sent, that it will respond positively to the messages we have sent, and come back to the negotiating table,' she said.

"The EU also froze assets of the Iranian Central Bank that are deposited in the EU and banned trade with Iran in gold, diamonds and precious metals. And it tightened restrictions on selling Iran technology that has military applications."

In a related report on January 24, 2012, The New York Times wrote:

"As the Obama administration and its European allies toughened economic sanctions against Iran on Monday — blocking its access to the world financial system and undermining its critical oil and gas industry — officials on both sides of the Atlantic acknowledge that their last-ditch effort has only a limited chance of persuading Tehran to abandon what the West fears is its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"That leaves open this critical question: And then what?

"While the United States and Israel have not taken military options off the table, pursuing them is unpalatable, at least for now. Several American and European officials say privately that the most attainable outcome for the West could be for Iran to maintain the knowledge and technology necessary to build a nuclear weapon while stopping short of doing so. That would allow it to assert its sovereignty and save face after years of diplomatic tensions.

"While that might seem to be a big concession on the part of the United States, Iran would first have to make even bigger ones: demonstrate that it could be trusted and drop its veil of secrecy so that inspectors could verify that its nuclear work was peaceful, steps Iran has resisted.

"In other words, Iran would have to become a country like Japan, which has the capability to become an atomic power virtually overnight, if need be, but has rejected taking the final steps to possessing nuclear weapons. 'If you’re asking whether we would be satisfied with Iran becoming Japan, then the answer is a qualified yes,' a senior European diplomat said. 'But it would have to be verifiable, and we are a long ways away from trusting the regime.'

"Today’s Iran is nothing like Japan, which has a deep aversion to nuclear weapons dating to the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And settling for an Iranian state that could quickly produce a nuclear weapon would be hard for the United States to embrace because of Israel’s deep antipathy toward Iran and Western and other nations’ fears of setting off a regional arms race."

Of all the issues arising in the Middle East, the most explosive is that of the Iranian stand-off with Western powers! While sanctions and embargoes play out over time, the Iranians skillfully negotiate delaying tactics, giving them more and more time to achieve the technology needed to create nuclear weapons! The wild card in all of this is the grave potential that a random and unplanned "event" might just trigger an all out confrontation--especially involving Israel and the United States.