I agree with your review of this article. The other part of this U.S. foreign policy initiative is that the Obama administratiion passed legislation (on New Year's Eve) that would penalize foreign firms that do business with Iran's central bank, which handles all of its oil revenues. This law was a unilateral move on the part of the U.S., yet it expects Asian countries to comply. Perhaps a better approach would have been to seek the support of some key Asian nations before enacting such legislation. One of Obama's advisers should have pointed out that the U.S. can't boss other countries, like China and Japan, around like it has done historically. Clearly, many foreign firms will "violate" this U.S. law and the Obama administration will be put in a precarious position: penalize those firms and risk alienating countries like China, Japan, and South Korea, or admit that the law has no teeth and is difficult, if not impossible to enforce. The U.S. might even consider how it might react if it were asked to stop importing oil from Saudi Arabia right now because they offended China or were pursuing a uranium-enrichment program. I think we all know what the U.S. response would be. We should expect no less from our Asian neighbors.
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