From The Ramparts

Deja Vu All over Again?

Deja Vu All Over Again?

“Iran has switched from dollar to euro and yen in oil trading, says international affairs director of the National Iranian Oil Company. Hojjatollah Ghanimifard in an interview with Fars news agency said since last year Iran's oil transactions have been conducted in euro and yen, and dollar has been completely replaced by these two major currencies. ‘Iran has reached agreements with all its crude oil buyers to pay in foreign currencies other than the US dollar,’ he added. Ghanimifard also noted that Iran's crude oil transactions in Europe are conducted in euro, while both euro and yen are used for its oil sales in Asia.” Iran using euro, yen in oil deals
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:33:23 http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=53742&sectionid=3510213

The US corporate media serves as a megaphone for the Bu$h administrations continuous saber rattling and threats against Iran, charging that country is a nuclear threat to the region, the world. The Bu$h administration, and the Zionists are saying Iranian “special elements” are the ones supplying the Iraqi anti-AmeriKKKan occupation with moral support, weaponry and training. Of course just like the run up to the invasion of Iraq, there is not one iota of real proof any of these claims are true. They are repeated incessantly by the corporate media, key Bu$h administration officials and the Zionist lobby. As the master of the malapropism Yogi Berra once said, “this looks like deja vu all over again.”
It sure does, in more ways than one. Remember the lies and the deluge of anti-Iraq propaganda we were subjected to prior to the US invasion of Iraq? Remember when Colin Powell, the only person in the Bu$h administration who had one scintilla of credibility destroyed it all by going to the United Nations and putting on a dog and pony show to demonstrate to the world body Iraq had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons? Remember how none of that turned out to be true? Remember Donald Rumsfeld saying at a press conference the US intelligence and military knew exactly where Saddam Hussein was keeping his store of WMD, then when they turned out not to be there he claimed he never said it? If you are not familiar with Rumsfeld’s lies about WMD watch yourself at http://youtube.com/watch?v=EYI7JXGqd0o&feature=related.
Rumsfeld wasn’t the only one; they all lied Bu$h, Cheney, Rice, Powell, especially the NeoCons and the Zionist lobby. I remind you of this because, “this looks like deja vu all over again.” Not only is the Bu$h-Cheney cabal doing the same thing over again, lying to start an aggressive imperialist invasion of a nation that poses no threat to the US, its’ neighbors or US allies in the region, they are planning to attack Iran for the same reasons they attacked Iraq: US dollar hegemony, oil and Israel.
In 2000 Saddam Hussein instituted a change in policy and began exchanging Iraqi oil not for US dollars but with European Union Euros. Following WWII the US dollar was the world medium of exchange even during recessions and slumps. At first Hussein’s move didn’t make much of a splash because the US dollar was valued higher than the Euro. But by 2003 when Bu$h fabricated his lies about WMD, the US dollar was in decline and the Euro was on the rise, threatening US dollar preeminence. Hussein’s move posed a major dilemma for the keepers of the dollar. As his move benefitted Iraq’s economy (the Euro was beginning to overtake the dollar in value) and other OPEC members started to think about doing the same thing, Uncle Sam said, “oh, hell no!” Since the US was pummeling Iraq via sanctions and thirteen years of bombing they couldn’t change course so they escalated the assault into a full scale invasion. They deposed Hussein to teach the rest of the world a lesson.
Of course the US corporate media will never tell the truth but this is the real deal, “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. Candidly stated, ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ was a war designed to install a pro-U.S. government in Iraq, establish multiple U.S military bases before the onset of global Peak Oil, and to reconvert Iraq back to petrodollars while hoping to thwart further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency (i.e. “petroeuro”). However, subsequent geopolitical events have exposed neoconservative strategy as fundamentally flawed, with Iran moving towards a petroeuro system for international oil trades, while Russia evaluates this option with the European Union.” Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse by William Clark http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html
Looks like deja vu all over again, because Iran recently announced the opening of its oil exchange and they are only selling their oil in exchange for Euros and Japanese Yen! This of course does not sit well with Wall Street and the big oil consortium. Since the Bu$h administration is their lackey willingly doing their bidding as all previous administrations have, they are now poised to try to intimidate and coerce Iran back into the US dollar fold. Keep in mind neither Saddam Hussein nor the Iranian leaders want war with the US. They want to be sovereign nations, left alone to do what is best for them and their people.
The US is a bully. The US government is like the bullies we may have dealt with in junior high school who tried to take your lunch money. If you gave in, they took your money any and every time they felt like it. If you fought maybe you lost, but often if you fought at least you got respect and quite often they left you alone. If you won, their reputation as a tough guy and bully was obliterated and you, the under dog, became a hero.
Saddam Hussein stood up to the bullies. He refused to back down. He had no air force or missile defense to counter the US vicious “Shock and Awe” bombardment of Baghdad that killed thousands of innocent men women and children. Nevertheless he stood his ground refusing to flee or abandon his people. The rest, is history. Now the bully is bogged down in a convoluted and winless occupation in Mesopotamia. Keep in mind this is the ancient land of “an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth” philosophy. The Bu$hites failed to grasp this culturallegacy. The NeoCons planned to make the Iraq occupation, colonization, permanent (the US has been in the Philippines for over a hundred years, Japan and German for over sixty years) but now they have Iran in their cross-hairs. Iran like many other countries, is looking outside the US dollar as their medium of exchange, especially since the Federal reserve is devaluing the US dollar almost weekly. So holding or trading in a devalued currency is not in Iran’s best interests. Naturally in a situation like this, there is tension. But for the US empire to survive, they cannot allow another country especially a major oil producing country to abandon the US dollar for another currency.
The saber rattling and sending the US carriers into the Persian Gulf are meant to intimidate Iran. It has nothing to do with Iran’s supposed nuclear weaponry (remember what they said about Iraq), it is about their dropping the US dollar and selling their oil in Euros and Yen. The Iranians originally scheduled to open their oil exchange in 2006 but they set the time frame back. Now it is open. The US is frantic getting ready to go into panic mode. As the threats and bellicose posturing escalate, the US is faced with major decisions: attack Iran and risk a larger regional (and possibly global) war, do nothing and watch the empire collapse faster or negotiate and try to work something out.
The bully is in a precarious predicament. But Iran is not Iraq. Iran has allies and business relationships with Russia and China. Iraq had relationships with France and Germany. Which countries do you think are more likely to give the bully are rougher time? Plus, Iran is a greater threat militarily because it has powerful allies in Russia and China. “Beijing's increasingly close ties with Moscow and Tehran will thwart Washington's foreign policy goal of expanding US security footholds in the Middle East, Central Asia and Asia. However, the primacy of economic stability will most likely prevent a proxy-style military confrontation, in Iran or North Korea, between China and the US. Initially, Moscow supported Washington's 'war on terrorism'. However, the US invasion of Iraq changed this support into resistance, and later into active efforts to counterbalance the US. In the past two years both Washington and Moscow have sought to strengthen their influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. ... More significantly, Moscow is working diligently to strengthen its ties with Iran, Syria and China - countries that Washington considers to be adversaries,’ Gundzik wrote in March 2005. Additionally, since the ‘beginning of the war in Iraq,’ he said, ‘Beijing has worked feverishly ... in an apparent effort to prevent US military action against the remaining 'axis of evil' members, Iran and North Korea. In addition to recent massive energy deals with Teheran, which place Iran in China's security web, both Beijing and Moscow have accelerated the transfer of missile technology to Teheran, while selling the Islamic republic increasingly sophisticated military equipment. ‘Armed with a vast array of anti-ship and long-range missiles, Iran can target US troop positions throughout the Middle East and strike US Navy ships. Iran can also use its weapons to blockade the Straits of Hormuz through which one-third of the world's traded oil is shipped. With the help of Beijing and Moscow, Teheran is becoming an increasingly unappealing military target for the US.’” China-Iran-Russia axis http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=China-Iran-Russia_axis
The question is, can the US, NATO and Israel afford to get into a real war with Russia, China, Iran and a host of stateless adversaries? Iran is not Iraq! The US is broke. What if Japan, China or the international bankers decide to stop lending the US money to operate every day? This is the one thing that will make the psychopaths pause before they do something insane. Is this deja vu all over again or will sanity be the order of the day?

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 8:39 PM