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Marshall Auerback: Last orders for the U.S. dollar?
By Doug Casey
Casey Research
February 28, 2005
http://www.howestreet.com/mainartcl.php?
ArticleId=1005&PHPSESSID=652dadc9538956f8dab39dcfb171597e
In recent weeks the news media has been overflowing with reports on
the increasing tension between the U.S. and Iran, supposedly based
on the Islamic country's unwillingness to drop its nuclear
programs.
A clear-cut case of another tyrannical nation whose government needs
to be ousted in order to make the world a safer place, it seems. But
WWNK has found information that's largely been flying under the
radar screen of the mainstream press and that might paint an
entirely different picture.
On February 18, Scott Ritter, ex-Marine and former United Nations
Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector who played a major
role in Iraq, dropped a bombshell during a speech delivered to an
audience in the Capitol Theater in Olympia, WA.
The event's sponsor, United for Peace of Pierce County (UFPPC), a
Washington state activist group that nonviolently opposes "the
reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative
diplomacy," had invited Ritter and independent war journalist Dahr
Jamail to talk about the war in Iraq.
In his speech, Ritter claimed that President George W. Bush has
received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran
planned for June 2005, citing an anonymous official as the source of
this information who -- according to Ritter -- was involved in the
manipulation of the election outcome in Iraq, which reduced the
percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from
56 to 48 percent. Ritter also stated that "this would soon be
reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major
metropolitan magazine," an allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour
M. Hersh, believes the UFPPC.
In a January 17 article in the New Yorker, Hersh had written
that "Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central
Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military's
war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran."
But why? Is Iran really such an imminent threat that it would
justify invading that country, with a U.S. army already stretched to
the max by its commitment in Iraq? Aside from the "official" nuclear-
threat argument, there may be other, economic, reasons that seem far
more logical.
In October 2004, William Clark, award-winning writer and author of
the soon-to-be published book "Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq, and
the Future of the Dollar" (spring 2005), gave his opinion on the
reasons for a pending U.S.-Iran crisis in an essay titled "The
Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target: The Emerging Euro-
denominated International Oil Market."
Clark blames "unspoken macroeconomic drivers" for the U.S.'
determination to attack Iran, in particular the fact that the Tehran
government plans to open a euro-based oil exchange in 2005 or early
2006, which, if successful, "would solidify the petroeuro as an
alternative oil transaction currency, and thereby end the
petrodollar's hegemonic status as the monopoly oil currency."
This, says Clark, would deliver a devastating blow to U.S.
corporations, which own both the London's International Petroleum
Exchange (IPE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the
main global oil traders.
All three current oil markers, the West Texas Intermediate crude
(WTI), the Norway Brent crude, and the UAE Dubai crude are dollar-
denominated. Iran, however, has required payment in euros for its
European and Asian/ACU exports since spring 2003. "It would be
logical to assume the proposed Iranian Bourse will usher in a fourth
crude oil marker -- denominated in the euro currency," predicts
Clark, a probable scenario in light of the fact that "the
European Union imports more oil from OPEC producers than does the
U.S., and the E.U. accounts for 45 percent of imports into the
Middle East."
In June 2004, the UK Guardian noted that "some industry experts
have warned the Iranians and other OPEC producers that western
exchanges are controlled by big financial and oil corporations,
which have a vested interest in market volatility." BP, Goldman
Sachs and Morgan Stanley, proud owners of the IPE since 2001,
refused to comment. In light of the fact that Iran, holder of the
second biggest oil reserves worldwide after Saudi Arabia, exports
2.7 million barrels of crude/day and produces 13 million tonnes of
petrochemicals/year, the Guardian foresaw bright prospects for the
new oil exchange.
That is not the only reason, though: Other recent events indicate
that Tehran's IPE and NYMEX competitor might be just what a large
part of the world has been waiting for. Not only has the euro
substantially risen against the dollar since late 2002 -- in May
2004, the countries using the euro as their currency increased from
12 to 22. Within the last two years, notes Clark, Russia as well as
China raised their central bank holdings of the euro, "which
appears to be a coordinated move to facilitate the anticipated
ascendance of the euro as a second world reserve currency."
According to a July 2004 article on Rigzone.com, an insider website
for the oil and gas industry, Chris Cook, a former IPE executive
turned independent consultant, commented that recently the Saudis
too have declared their interest in the project. Since 9/11, says
Rigzone, "Saudi Arabian investors are opting to invest in Iran
rather than traditional Western markets as the kingdom's
relations with the U.S. have weakened."
A lot of good reasons for the U.S. government to set their eyes on
regime change in Iran, says William Clark. And it wouldn't be the
first time, he says. His award-winning 2003 essay "The Real
Reasons for the Upcoming War with Iraq" suggests that Saddam Hussein
signed his own death warrant in 2000, when he announced that Iraq
would no longer accept US dollars for oil being sold under the UN
oil-for-food program, but that the country's official oil export
transaction currency would be switched to the euro.
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