The Myth of “Isolated” Iran: Following the Money in the Iran Crisis

[PETRUS]

Note: It's a long-ish piece, and I wasn't sure what portion to excerpt, but this segment is a good nugget -

"Follow the money. Leave aside, for the moment, the new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank that will go into effect months from now, ignore Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz (especially unlikely given that it’s the main way Iran gets its own oil to market), and perhaps one key reason the crisis in the Persian Gulf is mounting involves this move to torpedo the petrodollar as the all-purpose currency of exchange.

It’s been spearheaded by Iran and it’s bound to translate into an anxious Washington, facing down not only a regional power, but its major strategic competitors China and Russia. No wonder all those carriers are heading for the Persian Gulf right now, though it’s the strangest of showdowns -- a case of military power being deployed against economic power.

In this context, it’s worth remembering that in September 2000 Saddam Hussein abandoned the petrodollar as the currency of payment for Iraq’s oil, and moved to the euro. In March 2003, Iraq was invaded and the inevitable regime change occurred. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi proposed a gold dinar both as Africa’s common currency and as the currency of payment for his country’s energy resources. Another intervention and another regime change followed."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175490/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar%2C_sinking_the_petrodollar_in_the_persian_gulf/

More at the link.

[tabatha]

1. The carriers are heading to the Gulf because of Israel's threat to bomb Iran.

Obama will never go to war with Iran.

All these nonsense theories hurt my head.

[PETRUS]

3. Hey!

You follow the Middle East quite closely, don't you? I've noticed (and appreciated) your threads on the situation in Syria.

If you mean open war (in your prediction that Obama will not go to war with Iran), you could be right. And you're probably also correct about the proximate cause of US naval deployment. But evidence abounds that for decades much of US policy has had to do with asserting economic dominance, establishing control over resources, and gaining access to markets. So I don't think suggesting that the big picture of US behavior towards Iran involves heavy consideration of these issues should be dismissed as a nonsense theory.

[tabatha]

4. You know, I read that the currency theory was bogus a long time ago

and do not remember where or when. Maybe I should research that.

The Iraq invasion was for oil and regime change.

[tabatha]

6. During the Bush years, it was said that he would go to war with Iran because of the yet-to-be Bourse

Well, the Iranian Oil Bourse opened in 2008. So the petrodollar reason no longer applies to Iran, because it has already happned.


The Iranian Oil Bourse[1] (Persian: بورس نفت ایران ) International Oil Bourse,[2] Iran Petroleum Exchange Kish Exchange[3] or Oil Bourse in Kish[4] (IOB; the official English language name is unclear) is a commodity exchange which opened on February 17, 2008.[5][6][7][4] It was created by cooperation between Iranian ministries, the Iran Mercantile Exchange and other state and private institutions. The IOB is intended as an oil bourse for petroleum, petrochemicals and gas in various currencies other than the United States dollar, primarily the euro and Iranian rial and a basket of other major (non-US) currencies. The geographical location is at the Persian Gulf island of Kish which is designated by Iran as a free trade zone.[8]

During 2007, Iran asked its petroleum customers to pay in non US dollar currencies. By December 8, 2007, Iran reported to have converted all of its oil export payments to non-dollar currencies.[9] The Kish Bourse was officially opened in a videoconference ceremony on February 17, 2008, despite last minute disruptions to the internet services to the Persian Gulf regions. Currently the Kish Bourse is only trading in oil-derived products, generally those used as feedstock for the plastics and pharmaceutical industries. However, officially published statements by Iranian oil minister Gholamhossein Nozari indicate that the second phase, to establish trading in crude oil directly, which has been suggested might one day perhaps create a "Caspian Crude" benchmark price analogous to Brent Crude or WTI will only be started after the Bourse has demonstrated a reasonable period of trouble-free running.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse

(Wiki to shut down in 10 hours)

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The currency wars no one seems to know about..

Challenging the dollar as the reserve currency ( oil currency) is the issue behind a lot of Mid-East/African "interference".

[polly7]

5. Absolutely.

[tabatha]

7. Iran has already converted to currencies other than the dollar.

During 2007, Iran asked its petroleum customers to pay in non US dollar currencies. By December 8, 2007, Iran reported to have converted all of its oil export payments to non-dollar currencies. The Kish Bourse was officially opened in a videoconference ceremony on February 17, 2008, despite last minute disruptions to the internet services to the Persian Gulf regions.

From wikipedia - see thread above.

[polly7]

9. And?

How long have the war-drums been beating for Iran? It's just not the cake-walk Iraq was, that's all. Takes a bit more time and planning, but imo, it's been long anticipated.

Published Aug 2 2005 by Media Monitors Network, Archived Aug 8 2005
Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse
by William Clark

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7707

“This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous...Having said that, all options are on the table.”

– President George W. Bush, February 2005

Contemporary warfare has traditionally involved underlying conflicts regarding economics and resources. Today these intertwined conflicts also involve international currencies, and thus increased complexity. Current geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran extend beyond the publicly stated concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear intentions, and likely include a proposed Iranian “petroeuro” system for oil trade.

Similar to the Iraq war, military operations against Iran relate to the macroeconomics of ‘petrodollar recycling’ and the unpublicized but real challenge to U.S. dollar supremacy from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.

It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam’s long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining strategic control over Iraq’s hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market. Throughout 2004 information provided by former administration insiders revealed the Bush/Cheney administration entered into office with the intention of toppling Saddam Hussein.[1][2]


http://www.goldstockbull.com/articles/libya-invasion-gaddafi-plan-gold-dinar/

“It’s one of these things that you have to plan almost in secret, because as soon as you say you’re going to change over from the dollar to something else, you’re going to be targeted,” says Ministry of Peace founder Dr James Thring. “There were two conferences on this, in 1986 and 2000, organized by Gaddafi. Everybody was interested, most countries in Africa were keen.”

Gaddafi did not give up. In the months leading up to the military intervention, he called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create this new currency that would rival the dollar and euro. They would sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars.

It is an idea that would shift the economic balance of the world.



"There are only 5 nations without a Rothschild model central bank: North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Cuba and Libya.

There were two others: Afghanistan and Iraq, but they were gobbled up by the international banking system within a heartbeat of the invasions.

“It has always been about gaining control of the central banking system in Libya. Oil is just a profitable side issue like every other state asset that is waiting in Libya to be privatized and sold off to multinational corporations like Bechtel, GE, and Goldman Sachs. Oil is important and it is certainly a target but it isn’t the driving force behind these global wars for profit. Banking is.” (v)"

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/libya-oil-banks-water-the-united-nations-and-americas-holy-crusade/

Posted on April 5, 2011 by dandelionsalad

by Felicity Arbuthnot

Featured Writer

[tabatha]

10. War with Iran will not happen.

"The Pentagon's planners have war-gamed an attack on Iran and they just can't make it come out as a US victory. ... The US could "win" by dropping hundreds of [tactical] nuclear weapons ... But short of that, nothing works."

On this we have the word of Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism adviser in the White House under three administrations.

In the early 1990s, Clarke said in an interview with the New York Times four years ago, the Clinton Administration had considered a bombing campaign against Iran, but the military professionals told them not to do it.

"After a long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favourably for the US," he said. The Pentagon's planners have war-gamed an attack on Iran and they just can't make it come out as a US victory.

It's not the fear of Iranian nuclear weapons that makes the US Joint Chiefs of Staff so reluctant to get involved in a war with Iran. Those weapons don't exist and the whole justification for the war would be to make sure that they never do.

http://newworldorderreport.com/Default.aspx?tabid=266&ID=4957

[tabatha]

8. Examples?

If we don't know about it.