Standard Chartered, a British bank, has found itself on the receiving end of a bluntly worded message: do business with Iran, and the US will punish you for it. Executives at the bank are not the only ones wondering: “Who are these Americans to penalise a British bank for doing business with a third country? What gives Washington the right to strong arm European regulators into supporting US foreign policy plans?” The answer: the same Americans who do not want to see Iran develop a nuclear weapons capability but who are not prepared to provoke another Middle Eastern war by dropping bombs to destroy it.
英國(guó)渣打銀行(Standard Chartered)收到了一條語(yǔ)氣強(qiáng)硬的訊息：只要你與伊朗進(jìn)行交易，美國(guó)就將對(duì)你進(jìn)行懲罰。包括該行管理層在內(nèi)的很多人都不明白：“美國(guó)人憑什么對(duì)一家英國(guó)銀行與第三方國(guó)家從事交易進(jìn)行懲罰？是什么給了華盛頓強(qiáng)迫歐洲監(jiān)管當(dāng)局支持美國(guó)外交政策的權(quán)利？”答案是：因?yàn)檫@些美國(guó)人既不希望看到伊朗擁有制造核武器的能力，也不愿意炸毀伊朗核計(jì)劃去引發(fā)另一場(chǎng)中東戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。