Abandoning the petrodollar

BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
2/11-12/2012



The US either has to accept a nuclear-power Iran or go to war to stop it from producing its own nuclear weapon. Such is the premise being floated by those policy makers in Washington, Tel Aviv and London. This observation has come to surface for although all are eager to wage war against Iran, their interests are not really identical.

For one, Israel wants to launch a pre-emptive strike to prevent Iran from completing its alleged nuclear weapons development program. Destroying them before they could be stored in deep and hardened silos is a better option. The focus of Israel’s concern is on Iran’s becoming a full-fledged member of the nuclear club with the capacity to inflict massive damage to its territory.

The US, on the other hand, wants to punish it for threatening to drop the US dollar in the sale of its oil exports. For Iran to make good that threat to shift to other currencies and precious metals, like gold, could set a precedent for other countries to abandon the dollar as their international medium of exchange that has fattened the US economy by their purchase of treasury bills, securities, bonds and assets all denominated in US dollars

Abandonment from that de facto economic monopoly imposed by the US after President Nixon detached the dollar from its gold reserve in 1974 could trigger a steep devaluation of its currency. Such could trigger hyper-inflation to an economy that has been wracked by trade deficit and artificially kept afloat beyond its actual value. It is for this why tension now grips the Strait of Hormuz with the international media drumming up on Iran’s nuclear threat.

But as tension heightens to generate volatility in the price of oil in the international market, their policy towards Iran has been going through some kind of crystalline revision with both the Israelis and the US seeking to redefine their respective interests to warrant their going to war with the international public opinion to back them up. It is for this why observers say that US-Israeli relation is now at the crossword.

It is from this realization that has put a hinge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eagerness to go to war at the earliest possible time. The Zionists know that war with Iran could effectively erase their differences to bare the truth that it is not the threat of nuclear weapon that bugs them, but on their chauvinism to prevent any country from contesting their military dominance that allowed them to dictate the course of events in the Middle East.

The US has become Israel’s unwilling conduit. Trying get along on the issue of Iran’s denuclearization appears reasonable than going to war just to stave off that country’s plan to drop the US dollar. Even if it could snowball to seriously affect its international economic standing that could not hide its imperialistic motivation which might not be acceptable to the American public. Right now the majority of the American public see the present US policy in the Middle East as the result of intense Jewish lobby, and not borne out of any historical link.

It is for this that many patriotic Americans are beginning to ask whether the purposeful link of US interest to Israel’s interest, vis-à-vis its alleged survival, is anchored on that usual jingoistic posturing of not allowing the creation of a Palestinian state. Surely, the American public could not bear to see a war drag on, while sapping both their economic resources and the precious blood of their young boys that is the result of intense Jewish lobby that has found collaborative allies in Wall Street and in Congress.

In fact, many Americans are now questioning the wisdom of the massive economic aid running to about $13 billion annually, just for Israel to effectively play the role of America’s proxy mugger in the Middle East. US banks and oil companies now take cover in that Zionist propaganda to hide the truth that it would be a war to save their own skin consequent to their bungling of the US economy. This is asked because the premise of securing Israel’s existence could no longer be justified by the current military edge it enjoy against the Arab countries.

Rather, US support stands as supplementary to Israeli expansionism to a point that it has become parasitic to US aid all at the expense of the American taxpayers. Its record of atrocities against the Palestinian people is incomparable that they have become the source of American embarrassment domestically and abroad. On the other hand, Iran is fully aware that it was Iraq’s abandonment from the petrodollar that caused the US and its allies to savagely attack that country ending in the hanging of Saddam Hussein by the puppet government they installed, and triggered the bombing of Libya that reduced its cities to rubble and the subsequent brutal murder of Moammar Gaddhafi.

Nonetheless, Iran remains steadfast because the international currency market led by China, India, Russia and Brazil is taking steps to use direct currency exchange in their trade ties. In which case, the next war the world could possibly witness is a war to save the US dollar. As one would put it, the US dollar is the only currency in the world that has been able to maintain its artificial value by virtue of the American military might, and not by its true value in the international currency market.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)