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.
英國渣打銀行(Standard Chartered)收到了一條語氣強硬的訊息：只要你與伊朗進行交易，美國就將對你進行懲罰。包括該行管理層在內的很多人都不明白：「美國人憑什麼對一家英國銀行與第三方國家從事交易進行懲罰？是什麼給了華盛頓強迫歐洲監管當局支持美國外交政策的權利？」答案是：因爲這些美國人既不希望看到伊朗擁有製造核武器的能力，也不願意炸燬伊朗核計劃去引發另一場中東戰爭。