Word: straits
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...House of Saud with a $20 billion arms deal. He reaffirmed his devotion to the Iraq war and sent Condoleezza Rice on another "unannounced visit" to Baghdad?as if she could make any other kind. And he issued more warnings to Iran after U.S. warships were threatened in the Strait of Hormuz. "They'd better be careful and not be provocative," Bush said...
...Filipino Monkey?one or more pranksters who have been jabbering over the Persian Gulf maritime channels for decades and who nearly became the first nobodies to start a world war since 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. Critics said the standoff in the strait illustrated how a single provocateur can exploit global tensions and spark an international crisis. And they weren't thinking of the Filipino Monkey...
...when Taiwan held its first direct presidential election, China fired missiles into the strait that separates the island from the mainland in an attempt to bully voters into not supporting the independence-leaning candidate Lee Teng-hui. The act had the opposite effect and instead helped boost support for Lee; he won by a large margin. Since then Beijing has slowly been learning its lesson. "Whenever Taiwan has a big election, if Beijing makes a remark about local politics in Taiwan [it] will have a counterproductive effect," says Andrew Yang, secretary general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies...
...prevent Taiwan from declaring independence grows along with the budget for the People's Liberation Army, which has increased by more than 10% annually for the past 10 years. Chen says that there are now more than 1,300 missiles stationed on the Chinese mainland direct across the Taiwan Strait, up from the 200 when he became president in 2000. But these days Beijing has shown it can better influence events without firing them...
...Pentagon video showed it clearly: Iranian speedboats buzzing dangerously close to three U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway at the base of the Persian Gulf, on Jan. 6. A foreign voice called over the radio, "You will explode in a few minutes"--chilling words for those who remembered the small-boat attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 in 2000. Then, before the warships could fire, the boats turned away...