Text 10282, 133 rader
Skriven 2005-03-26 03:48:30 av RICHARD JOHNSON (1:10/345)
Ärende: Motives for war
=======================
From:  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8354.htm


The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro? 

By Dr. Elias Akleh 

03/24/05 "AMIN" - - Iran does not pose a threat to the United State because of
its nuclear projects, its WMD, or its support to "terrorists organizations" as
the American administration is claiming, but in its attempt to re-shape the
global economical system by converting it from a petrodollar to a petroeuro
system. Such conversion is looked upon as a flagrant declaration of economical
war against the US that would flatten the revenues of the American corporations
and eventually might cause an economic collapse. 

In June of 2004 Iran declared its intention of setting up an international oil
exchange (a bourse) denominated in the Euro currency. Many oil-producing as
well as oil-consuming countries had expressed their welcome to such petroeuro
bourse. The Iranian reports had stated that this bourse may start its trade
with the beginning of 2006. Naturally such an oil bourse would compete against
London˙s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), as well as against the New
York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), both owned by American corporations. 

Oil consuming countries have no choice but use the American Dollar to purchase
their oil, since the Dollar has been so far the global standard monetary fund
for oil exchange. This necessitates these countries to keep the Dollar in their
central banks as their reserve fund, thus strengthening the American economy.
But if Iran ˙ followed by the other oil-producing countries ˙ offered to accept
the Euro as another choice for oil exchange the American economy would suffer a
real crisis. We could witness this crisis at the end of 2005 and beginning of
2006 when oil investors would have the choice to pay $57 a barrel of oil at the
American (NYMEX) and at London˙s (IPE), or pay 37 Euros a barrel at the Iranian
oil bourse. Such choice would reduce trade volumes at both the Dollar-dependent
(NYMEX) and the (IPE). 

Many countries had studied the conversion from the ever weakening petrodollar
to the gradually strengthening petroeuro system. The de-valuation of the Dollar
was caused by the American economy shying away from manufacturing local
products ˙ except those of the military -, by outsourcing the American jobs to
the cheaper third world countries and depending only on the general service
sector, and by the huge cost of two major wars that are still going on. Foreign
investors started withdrawing their money from the shaky American market
causing further devaluation of the Dollar. 

The keen observer of the money market could have noticed that the devaluation
of the American Dollar had started since November 2002, while the purchasing
power of European Euro had crept upward to reach nowadays to $1.34. Compared to
the Japanese Yen the Dollar had dropped from 104.45 to 103.90 yen. The British
pound climbed another notch from $1.9122 to $1.9272. 

Economic reports published at the beginning of this month (March) had pointed
towards the deep dive of the American economy and to the quick rise of the
deficit up to $665.90 billion at the end of 2004. The worst is still to come.
These numbers worried the international banks, who had sent some warnings to
the Bush administration. 

In its economical war Iran is treading the same path Saddam Hussein had started
when he, in 2000, converted all his reserve from the Dollar to the Euro, and
demanded payments in Euro for Iraqi oil. Many economists then mocked Saddam
because he had lost a lot of money in this conversion. Yet they were very
surprised when he recuperated his losses within less than a year period due to
the valuation of the Euro. The American administration became aware of the
threat when central banks of many countries started keeping Euros along side of
Dollars as their monetary reserve and as an exchange fund for oil (Russian and
Chinese central banks in 2003). To avoid economical collapse the Bush
administration hastened to invade and to destroy Iraq under false excuses to
make it an example to any country who may contemplate dropping the Dollar, and
to manipulate OPEC˙s decisions by controlling the second largest oil resource.
Iraqi oil sale was reverted back to the petrodollar standard. 

There is only one technical obstacle concerning the use of a euro-based oil
exchange system, which is the lack of a euro-denominated oil pricing standard,
or oil ˙marker˙ as it is referred to in the industry. The three current oil
markers are U.S. dollar denominated, which include the West Texas Intermediate
crude (WTI), Norway Brent crude, and the UAE Dubai crude. Yet this did not stop
Iran from requiring payments in the euro currency for its European and Asian
oil exports since spring 2003. 

Iran˙s determination in using the petroeuro is inviting in other countries such
as Russia and Latin American countries, and even some Saudi investors
especially after the Saudi/American relations have weakened lately. This
determination had also invited an aggressive American political campaign using
the same excuses used against Iraq: WMD in the form of nuclear bomb, support to
"terrorist" Lebanese Hezbollah organization, and threat to the peace process in
the Middle East. 

The question now is what would the American administration do? Would it invade
Iran as it did Iraq? The American troops are knee-deep in the Iraqi swamp. The
global community ˙ except for Britain and Italy- is not offering any military
relief to the US. Thus an American strike against Iran is very unlikely. Iran
is not Iraq; it has a more robust military power. Iran has anti-ship missiles
based in "Abu Mousa" island that controls the strait of Hermuz at the entrance
of the Persian Gulf. Iran could easily close the strait thus blocking all naval
traffic carrying gulf oil to the rest of the world causing a global oil crisis.
The price of an oil barrel could reach up to $100. The US could not topple the
regime by spreading chaos the same way it did to Mussadaq˙s regime in 1953
since Iranians are aware of such a trick. Besides Iranians have a patriotic
pride of what they call "their bomb". 

America has resorted to instigate and encourage its military bastard, Israel,
to strike Iranian nuclear reactors the way it did to Iraq. Leaked reports had
revealed that Israeli forces are training for such an attack expected to take
place next June. Israel is afraid of an Iranian bomb. Such an "Islamic" bomb
would threaten Israel˙s military hegemony in the Middle East. The bomb would
extract some Israeli concessions and would create an arm race that would gobble
a lot of Israeli defense expenditure. Further more the bomb would force the US
to enter into negotiations with nuclear Iran that may limit Israeli expanding
ambitions. 

Iran had invested a lot of money and effort to obtain nuclear technology and
would never abandon it as evident in its political rhetoric. Unlike Iraq Iran
would not keep quiet of Israel strikes its nuclear facilities. Iran would
retaliate aggressively which may lead to the destabilization of the whole
region including Israel, Gulf States, Iraq, and even Afghanistan. 

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of
Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US.

This article appeared earlier on the website of the Arabic Media Internet
Network. http://amin.org

˙ 2005 Arabic Media Internet Network ˙ Internews Middle East .  All rights
reserved. You may republish under the following conditions: An active link to
the original publication must be provided. You must not alter, edit or remove
any text within the article, including this copyright notice.


Hmmmmm, as suspected, the war was, is and will be about oil being priced in
EUROS rather than dollars.  Interesting.

 
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