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Plans for Iran
Mike Whitney
February 1, 2006
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. 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. This 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.
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