Oil, and the geopolitics of China and Iran: President Barack Obama's new military policy -- the U.S. focus will shift to two geographic areas, China and Iran -- steps up the geopolitics of oil. In the case of China, what keeps American policymakers up at night? It is the prospect of a challenge to the U.S. control of movement on the world's seas. As of now, Beijing's navy isn't impressive, but it has proven a nuisance in one place -- the South China Sea. It is there that Washington -- along with Chinese neighbors such as Vietnam and the Philippines -- has thrown down a red line. What has the South China Sea friction been about? As suggested, for the U.S. it is the geopolitical influence that accompanies dominance of the world's seaways. But, locally speaking, it is mostly a belief that the South China Sea lies above massive volumes of oil and gas. So the U.S. will maintain a naval presence in the area.

No one at the moment is going to go to war over the South China Sea, but in the case of Iran, we enter a different universe. Europe appears likely Jan. 30 to approve a near-cutoff of oil purchases from Iran. Obama signed a U.S. version of the sanctions this week. Iran's response has been military -- it calls the sanctions an act of war, and has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the channel for 17 percent of the world's daily oil supply. As a demonstration that it can do so, Iran has announced more naval maneuvers, to be held next month, reports Reuters' Robin Pomeroy. So are we at the cusp of World War III, as some have suggested, especially if Iran unleashes Hezbollah on Israel? In Tehran, the Washington Post's Thomas Erdbrink and Joby Warrick describe a populace stocking up in the event of fighting. At Foreign Affairs, Suzanne Maloney suggests that Iran correctly defines the sanctions as a war footing: By attacking Iran's Central Bank, and thus its ability to pay its bills, and be paid, the West has "backed itself into a policy of regime change." Even if one regards negotiations as ineffectual, Maloney writes, a shift to promoting the ouster of Iran's rulers is worse, placing a reliance on dynamics that "Washington has little ability to influence." Commentator Fareed Zakaria disagrees. He says that Iran is no threat, but instead is becoming "weak and getting weaker."

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