WASHINGTON – The dispute over Iran’s nuclear development program has become the dividing line between two opposing blocs of countries – just as the Obama administration further tightens sanctions to cut off U.S. trade with any country that continues to get oil from Iran, says a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

In effect, the issue is pitting the developed countries against major developing nations.

China and India already have shown signs of defiance. Both countries have informed the United States they intend to continue buying oil from Iran.

China and India are part of the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The European Union has joined the United States in pushing for more stringent, unilateral sanctions beyond those originally passed by the United Nations Security Council against Iran.

While the latest U.S. and E.U. sanctions aren’t supposed to go into effect until June, the fallout of last week’s announcement by the Obama administration could cause major economic repercussions globally.

A top official at the International Monetary Fund in Washington told G2Bulletin that the BRICS countries, especially China and India, have begun to influence policies at the IMF and in other international economic and political entities.

If China and India continue their defiance of the latest sanctions come June, the official said that “it’s going to be a crazy summer.”

He expressed concerns that it could damage the already fragile economies in the developed world even more.

China imports some 20 percent of its oil from Iran. India depends on Iran for some 12 percent of its oil “and remains stubbornly tethered to Cold War principles of non-alignment,” according to Jeff M. Smith of the American Foreign Policy Council. “New Delhi has a history of cooperation with Tehran in opposing the Taliban in Afghanistan and has sought to use Iran as an alternative trade and energy conduit to Central Asia, bypassing rival Pakistan.”

This defiance by the BRICS countries, especially from India and China which have the most trade with Iran especially in oil, also could affect trade relations with the U.S. and the E.U. Former Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has warned the Indians that their government “is now actively impeding the construction of the strategic relationship it says it wants with the U.S.” (© 2012 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. 04/03/12)