From an article by Ed Haas:
"In November 2000, Iraq stopped accepting U.S. dollars for their oil. Counted as a purely political move, Saddam Hussein switched the currency required to purchase Iraqi oil to the euro. Selling oil through the U.N. Oil for Food Program, Iraq converted all of its U.S. dollars in its U.N. account to the euro. Shortly thereafter, Iraq converted $10 billion in their U.N. reserve fund to the euro. By the end of 2000, Iraq had abandoned the U.S. dollar completely."
"In November 2000, Iraq stopped accepting U.S. dollars for their oil. Counted as a purely political move, Saddam Hussein switched the currency required to purchase Iraqi oil to the euro. Selling oil through the U.N. Oil for Food Program, Iraq converted all of its U.S. dollars in its U.N. account to the euro. Shortly thereafter, Iraq converted $10 billion in their U.N. reserve fund to the euro. By the end of 2000, Iraq had abandoned the U.S. dollar completely."
"Two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was ended, the country’s accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil began to be sold once again for U.S. dollars. No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with the euro. Universal global dollar supremacy was restored. It is interesting to note that the latest recession that the United States endured began and ended within the same timeframe as when Iraq was trading oil for euros. Whether this is a coincidence or related, the American people may never know."
Remember when the saber rattling against Iran began last year? Iran had been threatening to convert their oil from petrodollars to petroeuros. This would mean that the euro, which has been gaining on the dollar steadily over the past few years, would be strengthened even more at the dollar's expense. Oil is the biggest business on the planet and Iran is one of the main suppliers.
Moreover, Iran has already requested that its European and Asian oil customers pay in euros instead of dollars:
"Therefore, a potentially significant news development was reported in June 2004 announcing Iran’s intentions to create of an Iranian oil Bourse. (The word "bourse" refers to a stock exchange for securities trading, and is derived from the French stock exchange in Paris, the Federation Internationale des Bourses de Valeurs.) This announcement portended competition would arise between the Iranian oil bourse and London’s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), as well as the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). It should be noted that both the IPE and NYMEX are owned by U.S. corporations."
"The macroeconomic implications of a successful Iranian Bourse are noteworthy. Considering that Iran has switched to the euro for its oil payments from E.U. and ACU customers, it would be logical to assume the proposed Iranian Bourse will usher in a fourth crude oil marker – denominated in the euro currency. Such a development would remove the main technical obstacle for a broad-based petroeuro system for international oil trades. From a purely economic and monetary perspective, a petroeuro system is a logical development given that the European Union imports more oil from OPEC producers than does the U.S., and the E.U. accounts for 45% of imports into the Middle East (2002 data)."
The above is quoted from this article by William Clark.
So what does this all add up to? Well, given the decline of the United States' manufacturing infrastructure, we are increasingly dependent upon the power to trade dollars for real goods from countries like China. This is all well and good, except for the fact that if demand for the dollar falls, as it certainly would if Iran were to go through with its promise of creating a euro-based oil bourse, the buying power of the dollar and consequently the U.S. economy would fall with it. Again, William Clark:
"A successful Iranian bourse will solidify the petroeuro as an alternative oil transaction currency, and thereby end the petrodollar's hegemonic status as the monopoly oil currency. Therefore, a graduated approach is needed to avoid precipitous U.S. economic dislocations. Multilateral compromise with the EU and OPEC regarding oil currency is certainly preferable to an 'Operation Iranian Freedom,' or perhaps another CIA-backed coup such as operation "Ajax" from 1953. Despite the impressive power of the U.S. military, and the ability of our intelligence agencies to facilitate 'interventions,' it would be perilous and possibly ruinous for the U.S. to intervene in Iran given the dire situation in Iraq."
I believe that these are all things to keep in mind any time you hear about Iran waging a proxy war in Iraq or planning to nuke Israel. There is always much more to geopolitics than meets the eye. Seymour Hersh recently wrote a story detailing accelerated Pentagon planning of airstrikes and clandestine ground operations in Iran; could we be witnessing the seeds of yet another war in the middle east? Is it mere coincidence that both our current president and vice-president are former oilmen?
The above is quoted from this article by William Clark.
So what does this all add up to? Well, given the decline of the United States' manufacturing infrastructure, we are increasingly dependent upon the power to trade dollars for real goods from countries like China. This is all well and good, except for the fact that if demand for the dollar falls, as it certainly would if Iran were to go through with its promise of creating a euro-based oil bourse, the buying power of the dollar and consequently the U.S. economy would fall with it. Again, William Clark:
"A successful Iranian bourse will solidify the petroeuro as an alternative oil transaction currency, and thereby end the petrodollar's hegemonic status as the monopoly oil currency. Therefore, a graduated approach is needed to avoid precipitous U.S. economic dislocations. Multilateral compromise with the EU and OPEC regarding oil currency is certainly preferable to an 'Operation Iranian Freedom,' or perhaps another CIA-backed coup such as operation "Ajax" from 1953. Despite the impressive power of the U.S. military, and the ability of our intelligence agencies to facilitate 'interventions,' it would be perilous and possibly ruinous for the U.S. to intervene in Iran given the dire situation in Iraq."
I believe that these are all things to keep in mind any time you hear about Iran waging a proxy war in Iraq or planning to nuke Israel. There is always much more to geopolitics than meets the eye. Seymour Hersh recently wrote a story detailing accelerated Pentagon planning of airstrikes and clandestine ground operations in Iran; could we be witnessing the seeds of yet another war in the middle east? Is it mere coincidence that both our current president and vice-president are former oilmen?
7 comments:
A) No, it's not a coincidence. Anyone who can't see that this is an oil war is either blind or in severe denial.
B) Attacking Iran would be a horrible, horrible mistake. While the Iranian government is pretty much anti-America, the people of Iran are very much the opposite, and attacking that country would definitely injure our already mortally wounded foreign policy. Like Arunski throwing a grenade.
C) I would go so far as to wage a bloody coup in this country if I had the charisma to pull it off.
I will suppot your coup. I will wear a beret and chant revolutionary slogans. I will do so wearing a Che Guevara (tm) t-shirt purchased from Dillard's for 18.99 plus tax.
Gotta Love Che! Especially the hip youngsters that have no idea why the t-shirt makes them look so political...and stuff.
I am in full agreement, that the war for oil is totally out of control. Can we not just bow out and raid the General Motor files and adapt to the many patents they buried? Can we not go in like a Tom Clancy video game and extract the intel needed to remove us from this quagmire(Gigiddy!) Important historical figures have been snuffed out. Jack and Robert Kennedy(Ted is still kicking thanks to his alcohol dependency, which proves my point that alcohol does save lives), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Anna Nicole Smith, the list goes on and on! My point is certain people have been eliminated to protect ones own interest. GM has a lot invested in the Middle East. Would they not profit if they were the only ones who mass produced the shit fueled car?
Let's face it. Oil is only here for so long. Shit is endless. Especially what the Bush Administration has been feeding us since March 19th, 2003.
As far as coups go, I feel a little hesitant, hell, I'm just going to come out and say I'm just plain scared. If there is one thing history teaches us is that coup d'etat is a temporary solution. It's a lot like duct tape. I love Animal Farm. Especially the cartoon version with the anti-communist undertone installed by the Central Intelligence Agency(It's true. The book that came with the DVD told me so). I deeply feel we are all corruptible.
Change is done initially for the good of your fellow man, but over time the money, power, women(or men, it's cool. Whatever), Blockbuster Gift Cards, etc distorts one's view and makes them no better, if not worst than those he initially removed from power.
I hate ending on a downer.
Hopefully a coup of worthy status will be televised on CNN as an outcry for making things better. On the fair and balanced side,
maybe Fox will dub it " A last ditch effort by a group of extreme liberals, who so desperately miss the Clinton Administration".
"No one died, when Clinton lied" is a catchy slogan. I do however remember midnight bombings of Baghdad around the same time he was Impeached due to the Blewinsky scandal.
Your blog actually set me off on a tangent the likes of which I haven't been on in years. I blogged what I could, but still have more beneath the surface. My neurons are still firing and thinking of things that would have Jack Bauer on my ass like a bad case of hemorrhoids.
I believe we do have special forces inside Iran working to destabilize the economy. The Downing Street Memo proved that the U.S. was bombing Iraq for months before the invasion in March 2003, hoping Hussein would take the bait and retaliate. Bush was looking for his Gulf of Tonkin. That's been the U.S. playbook for years: in the Soviet Union bloc countries, in Cuba, we would poison livestock, even the water supply, sabotage industry, flood the money supply with counterfeit currency. You know, that's what you expect from true believers who actually think they're somehow on the front lines of the war against ... communism/terror/socialism. You can justify a lot of killing that way. Cheney probably thinks he's doing Americans a favor, getting our oil from under their sand so that Americans can continue to drive around in their Hummers while proudly displaying their Support the Troops decals.
And oh yeah, consider me part of the coup. I live for the day when i can fight in a regiment against the likes of Tucker Carlson, Neil Cavuto, Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry.
The plots against Castro during the early 1960's were remarkable. I remember reading about one scheme that involved making his beard fall out. Then there was the woman, a former lover of his, whom the CIA recruited to poison him (she hid the cyanide capsules in her tub of cold cream.) It's nice to hear about the things federal tax dollars are spent on.
I'm sure there's all kinds of covert shit being done in Iran, and lots of it would probably shock even a cynic such as myself. It's interesting that Al-Maliki is making public statements about how great a job Iran is doing *fighting* terrorists. The Iraqi Civil War has really strengthened Iran's hand in the region. It'll definitely be an interesting next few years...
Yeah. We could use another Cold War.
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