Lewis Carroll’s famous book Alice in Wonderland was followed by a sequel he wrote called Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. The book was full of symbols about the game of chess and the funny world Alice encounters inside the world of mirrors, especially with clocks running backward or other things turned on their heads.

The current tensions between Iran and its European counterparts, as well as the United States, are also a reflection of a strange game of chess, with different clocks telling different times and multiple players competing for the prize–which may in fact be difficult to define. Could 2012 be a year where a cross fire of domestic politics, Iranian intransigence, Israeli anxieties or an unintended provocation generate a war no one wants?

This past week, the European Union approved a phased ban on Iranian oil imports as part of a Western campaign to pressure Iran into stopping its nuclear processing. The EU and the U.S. accuse Iran of trying to develop a nuclear weapon capability under cover of a civilian energy program, a charge Tehran vehemently denies.

How this latest chapter in negotiations with Tehran plays out is anyone’s guess. The Iranian bluster of retaliating with an attempt to close down the Straits of Hormuz remains exactly that.  The threat aimed at Europe of turning off their oil pipelines immediately was also less impressive than expected, with Europeans quick to point out that they will replace the Iranian oil with other sources.

Iranian oil accounted for just 5.7 percent of total oil imports to the EU in 2010. The EU is the second largest importer after China. Some countries like Italy, Greece, and Spain import a higher percentage of oil from Iran, and the EU is going to have to address their needs precisely at a time when the southern EU countries are facing some tough economic pressures. Meanwhile, oil exports make up 50 percent of Iranian government revenue and such a boycott can cause a lot of pain in Tehran. Add the efforts of the United States to constrict the assets of the Iranian central bank to Teheran’s financial strain and the pressure is sure to be mounting on a government facing parliamentary elections in March, with the memories of a falsified election in 2009 still very much alive in the streets.

The fact that the EU is taking a rather tough stance toward Iran   and has managed to generate a common platform to do so, is noteworthy in itself. Both the British and the French governments have been pushing particularly hard, with the UK’s embassy recently ransacked in Tehran. Germany has been Iran’s most important trading partner in the EU, but Berlin has been responding to pressures to reduce those ties, even though the business community has not always been thrilled with that effort. Arguing against unilateral trade restrictions, German industry representatives claim that Germany would lose jobs and allow Chinese and other rivals to take over the market. Yet, Chancellor Merkel stood fully behind the oil boycott.