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In less than 24 hours the Bush administration has won impressive victories
on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. At home, the far-right Federalist
Society alum, Sam Alito, has overcome the feeble resistance from Democratic
senators; ensuring his confirmation to the Supreme Court sometime late on Tuesday.
Equally astonishing, the administration has coerced both Russia and China into
bringing Iran before the United Nations Security Council although (as Mohamed
ElBaradei says) “There’s no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.”
The surprising capitulation of Russia and China has forced Iran to abandon its
efforts for further negotiations; cutting off dialogue that might diffuse the
volatile situation.
“We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as
the end of diplomacy,” Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme
National Security Council, told state television.
The administration’s success with Iran ends the diplomatic charade and
paves the way for war. Now, UN Ambassador John Bolton can make his appearance
before the Security Council with allegations of “noncompliance”
that will rattle through the corporate media and prepare the world for unilateral
military action.
The administration has no expectation of securing the votes needed for sanctions
or punitive action. Its all for show. The trip to the Security Council is simply
a ploy to provide the cover of international legitimacy to another act of unprovoked
aggression. The case has gone as far as it will go excluding the requisite “touched
up” satellite photos and spurious allegations of unreliable dissidents.
We should now be focused on how Washington intends to carry out its war plans,
since war is inevitable.
Those who doubt that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team will attack Iran,
while so conspicuously overextended in Iraq, are ignoring the subtleties of
the administration’s Middle East strategy.
Bush has no intention of occupying Iran. Rather, the goal is to destroy major
weapons-sites, destabilize the regime, and occupy a sliver of land on the Iraqi
border that contains 90% of Iran’s oil wealth. Ultimately, Washington
will aim to replace the Mullahs with American-friendly clients who can police
their own people and fabricate the appearance of representative government.
But, that will have to wait. For now, the administration must prevent the incipient
Iran bourse (oil-exchange) from opening in March and precipitating a global
sell-off of the debt-ridden dollar. There have many fine articles written about
the proposed “euro-based” bourse and the devastating effects it
will have on the greenback. The best of these are “Petrodollar Warfare:
Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar” by William R. Clark, and “The
Proposed Oil Bourse” by Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.
The bottom line on the bourse is this; the dollar is underwritten by a national
debt that now exceeds $8 trillion dollars and trade deficits that surpass $600
billion per year. That means that the greenback is the greatest swindle in the
history of mankind. It’s utterly worthless. The only thing that keeps
the dollar afloat is that oil is traded exclusively in greenbacks rather than
some other currency. If Iran is able to smash that monopoly by trading in petro-euros
then the world’s central banks will dump the greenback overnight, sending
markets crashing and the US economy into a downward spiral.
The Bush administration has no intention of allowing that to take place. In
fact, as the tax-cuts and the budget deficits indicate, the Bush cabal fully
intends to perpetuate the system that trades worthless dollars for valuable
commodities, labor, and resources. As long as the oil market is married to the
dollar, this system of global indentured servitude will continue.
Battle Plans
The Bush administration’s attention has shifted to a small province in
southwestern Iran that is unknown to most Americans. Never the less, Khuzestan
will become the next front in the war on terror and the lynchpin for prevailing
in the global resource war. If the Bush administration can sweep into the region
(under the pretext disarming Iran’s nuclear programs) and put Iran’s
prodigious oil wealth under US control, the dream of monopolizing Middle East
oil will have been achieved.
Not surprisingly, this was Saddam Hussein’s strategy in 1980 when he
initiated hostilities against Iran in a war that would last for eight years.
Saddam was an American client at the time, so it is likely that he got the green
light for the invasion from the Reagan White House. Many of Reagan’s high-ranking
officials currently serve in the Bush administration; notably Rumsfeld and Cheney.
Khuzestan represents 90% of Iran’s oil production. The control over these
massive fields will force the oil-dependent nations of China, Japan and India
to continue to stockpile greenbacks despite the currency’s dubious value.
The annexing of Khuzestan will prevent Iran’s bourse from opening, thereby
guaranteeing that the dollar will maintain its dominant position as the world’s
reserve currency. As long as the dollar reigns supreme and western elites have
their hands on the Middle East oil-spigot, the current system of exploitation
through debt will continue into perpetuity. The administration can confidently
prolong its colossal deficits without fear of a plummeting dollar. In fact,
the American war-machine and all its various appendages, from Guantanamo to
Abrams Tanks, are paid for by the myriad nations who willingly hold reserves
of American currency.
This extortion-scheme is typically referred to as the global economic system.
In reality, it has nothing to do with either free markets or capitalism. That
is just philosophical mumbo-jumbo. It is the dollar-system; predicated entirely
on the ongoing monopoly of the oil trade in dollars.
Invading Khuzestan
In a recent article by Zolton Grossman, “Khuzestan; the First Front in
the War on Iran?”, Grossman cites the Beirut Daily Star which predicts
that the “"first step taken by an invading force would be to occupy
Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz
and cutting off the Iranian military's oil supply, forcing it to depend on its
limited stocks."
This strategy has been called the “Khuzestan Gambit”, and we can
expect that some variant of this plan will be executed following the aerial
bombardment of Iranian military installations and weapons sites. If Iran retaliates,
then there is every reason to believe that either the United States or Israel
will respond with low-yield, bunker-busting nuclear weapons. In fact, the Pentagon
may want to demonstrate its eagerness to use nuclear weapons do deter future
adversaries and to maintain current levels of troop deployments without a draft.
Tonkin Bay Redux
On January 28, 2006, Iranian officials announced that they would “hand
over evidence that proved British involvement in bombings in the southern city
of Ahvaz earlier in the week” that killed eight civilians and wounded
46 others. This was just one of the many bombings, incitements, and demonstrations
that have taken place in Khuzestan in the last year that suggest foreign intervention.
The action is strikingly similar to the 2 British commandoes who were apprehended
in Basra a few months ago dressed as Arabs with a truckload of explosives during
the week of religious festival.
Coincidence?
Probably not.
Step by step, Iran is being set up for war. What difference does the provocation
make? The determination to consolidate the oil reserves in the Caspian Basin
was made more than a decade ago and is clearly articulated in the policy papers
produced by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) The Bush administration
is one small province away from realizing the its dream of controlling the world’s
most valued resource. They won’t let that opportunity pass them by.
We're in for another war.
Mike lives in Washington State with his charming wife Joan and two
spoiled and overfed dogs, Cocoa and Pat-Fergie.
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