@@ Beedaarsheed @@
Arash
February 16, 2005
Beedaarsheed
A modern geopolitical primer for Iranian expatriates
By Ramin Davoodi
Q. What would you do if Congress embargoes arms sales in the Persian Gulf
region?
A. That would be so irresponsible that I am not even thinking about it.
But if it happens, do you think our hands are tied? We have ten other
markets to provide us with what we need. There are people just waiting for
that moment.
If you remain our friends, obviously you will enjoy all the power and
prestige of my country. But if you try to take an unfriendly attitude toward
my country, we can hurt you as badly if not more so than you can hurt us.
Not just through oil - we can create trouble for you in the region. If you
force us to change our friendly attitude, the repercussions will be
immeasurable.
-- Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, U.S. News & World Report, March 22, 1976.
http://www.rezapahlavi.org/father/mrpmain1.jpg
Iranians in America are starting to wake up to the palpable sense of danger
facing their homeland. This danger isn't limited to just the very real sense
of a potential physical encroachment by an outside state; it is all the more
felt, as it has been in decades past, in the imminently humiliating context
of a loss of vital state sovereignty at the hands of larger, more aggressive
powers.
Recent statements made by US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, alluding to the perceived need for confronting Iran
over its alleged nuclear activities, lack the normal "spin" quotient
accompanying much of what the Bush Administration emotes regularly regarding
its foreign policy.
This is so because said statements accompany reports of alleged
reconnaissance missions being flown over Iran, as well as the infiltration
of Iran by US-hired or appointed intelligence operatives ranging from
Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO) members, to European Union
passport-carrying business vendors, to seemingly meandering expatriots who
make a point of traveling to and from Iran annually.
For many Iranians abroad who desire to see Iran ultimately change into an
Open Society, building feelings of anticipation, nay, elation, over
impending changes are mixed with and trepidation, concern and a demonstrably
justifiable sense of anxiety.
Yet what exactly is imminent? Has the Iranian community collectively
considered and consulted over the implications of any show of violence
towards, or in, Iran in this day and age? Or are we so inebriated with a
half-witted sense of anticipation over seemingly epochal changes on the one
hand, and the maddening general pace of life in the West on the other, that
world events guided by other parties must, yet again, tragically visit
themselves on our homeland and core culture?
Are we aware of the fact that Iran represents an increasingly valuable and
indispensable pivot point in the modern global geopolitical and economic
landscape, or do we, too, buy into the convenient media-issued image of Iran
as just another corrupt domino that must fall to the "democracy" exporting
Neoconservative juggernaut which stretches from San Diego to Washington,
London and Tel Aviv?
Considering the dizzying global economic stakes that both the US and Iran
face in this day of dissipating petrochemical reserves, shifting strategic
alliances, precarious global finances, rising regional instabilities,
diverging demographic trends and mounting environmental havoc, it is best
that the expatriated descendents of Darius, Kourosh and Cyrus the Great take
adequate note of various realities on the ground in Iran and Asia.
Oil, Trade, Leverage and Other Geopolitical Realities
Iran retains the second largest bed of natural gas in the world and 10% of
the globe's oil reserves. In a world where demand for energy resources have
started to outpace supplies (discovered or undiscovered) over the past few
years and oil reserves are dissipating in a scenario known as "Peak Oil" ,
these are not insignificant facts.
The current leadership in Iran certainly recognizes these facts and has
reacted to them, as well as to the political pressures placed on it from the
"Coalition of the Willing", partly by tactically positioning itself
alongside other strategically valuable powers which are in need of vital
energy resources.
Iran recently signed a $100 billion oil and natural gas deal with China that
will be reciprocated with Chinese goods and services. China has the fastest
economic growth rate -- and thus, need for oil -- in the world. China also
retains a crucial United Nations Security Council vote/veto, which could
prove valuable to Iran should the UN be urged to impose widespread economic
sanctions on Iran by the US, Israel or even European states.
Iran also recently announced a strategically crucial $40 billion natural gas
deal with India that garnered the blessings of China, Japan and South Korea.
Such a project would ultimately necessitate a pipeline to be built across
India's arch-rival nation of Pakistan. Iranian-Pakistani relations have
strengthened after the fall of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan and
frequent reciprocal visits have been made by senior officials.
Although in very preliminary stages, this deal in part reflects Tehran's
growing diplomatic ambitions -- through energy sharing, Iran could link
these two historic enemies' economic interests. The US naturally opposes
such a deal and is pressuring both Pakistan and India to reject it.
According to the Asia Times, such a deal, if implemented, would also
"foreclose whatever prospects remain of the revival of the trans-Afghan
pipeline project, which many still see as a raison d'etre of the US
intervention in Afghanistan."
Despite Pakistan's current alliance with the US, such economic and
diplomatic actions by Iran present the possibility that, were the US or
Israel to attack Iran, they would further alienate Iran's Muslim neighbor to
the east from the US by drawing the Karachi street's sympathies, pressuring
Musharraf and threatening Pakistan's client-state status for the West.
To Iran's northeast is Russia, which has been collaborating with Iran in oil
and natural gas production, nuclear energy, civic infrastructure and
transportation development. The increasingly (and justifiably) paranoid and
power consolidating Vladimir Putin is fighting off US and Israeli assertions
on Russia's inherent energy riches with actions ranging from the jailing of
ambitious American-Israeli leaning oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky , to
trying to deflect the possibility of a strategic loss of Ukraine from
Russia's sphere of influence (thus far, Putin has batted .500 over these two
goals).
With US overtures towards Eastern Europe, the foreign-assisted procurement
of a US-friendly government in Ukraine , meddling in Kiev, as well as US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent visits to the former Soviet
states near the Caspian Sea , it is safe to say that Moscow is not about to
lose Iran as well to the US, UK and Israel.
Some modern history is in order with regard to the US, Russia and Iran. In
1978 and 1979, the Shah of Iran initially faced increasing pressures from a
restless population and eventually, a mass revolt that ousted him and seized
the US Embassy. An itchy Carter Administration wished at one point to use
outright force to put down the Iranian insurrection. The US hesitated and
finally refrained from doing so, due in large part to heavy admonitions from
Soviet Premiere Leonid Brezhnev, who claimed that US intrusion into Iran
would be received as an act of aggression against the Soviet Union's
interests.
According to author Larry Everest, Brezhnev "warned the US that ‘any
interference, especially military, in the affairs of Iran, a state which
directly borders the Soviet Union, would be regarded as affecting its own
security,' thereby raising the specter that the Soviets could invoke the
1921 treaty giving them the right to move troops into Iran in the event of
foreign armed intervention. The US replied that it would not interfere,
weakening the Shah's regime and bolstering its opponents." Tensions between
the US and the Soviets continued into 1980, during and after the failed
hostage rescue mission that was attempted by the Carter Administration.
The same sentiments emanate from a steely-eyed Moscow today, with Duma
member and Head of Iran-Russia Parliamentary Friendship Committee Youri
Savilov stating last year that the "threats by the U.S. and Israel against
Iran contravene international law", and announcing that "Moscow and Tehran
have recently signed a 10-year economic cooperation agreement." Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also recently praised "prospects for
Russian-Iranian relations. Iran is our neighbor and our traditional
partner."
For the sake of at least political fluency, Iranian expatriots must awaken
to the fact that the various powers surrounding Iran, including China,
Pakistan, India and certainly Russia, are against US / Israeli attempts at
an overt attack, invasion or covert regime change in Iran. Some of these
powers may therefore understandably react under such circumstances to
protect their own growing strategic and economic interests in Iran.
The Wider Picture, The Larger Stakes
The US and Israel desire immediate regime change in Iran. They claim that,
due to Iran's history of supporting terrorism, its meddling in Iraq's
current state of affairs, and its ambitions to develop nuclear weapons, that
ideally Iran and the world would benefit from a change in government. Yet
why now are these powers so adamant about regime change in Iran, versus
during the 1990s or even before that?
The answer may lie behind the fact that they realize, as does the rest of
the world, that Iran is ambitiously seeking to assist in the sweeping yet
controversial reordering of global energy pricing and trading rules that is
now in procession. Iran's perceived need to defend itself would then be
triggered, in turn, by threats against its sovereign right for seeking such
tectonically sweeping economic ambitions.
Certainly, the prime reasons stated in the press for the US to confront Iran
involve the possibility that Iran is developing a nuclear arsenal. Although
the Iranian government, as well as the Russian government which is largely
responsible for the materiel sold to Iran, deny that such nuclear intentions
exist, any nation in Iran's surrounded and threatened condition would be
acting irrationally if it weren't seeking to develop a viable deterrent
against foreign aggressions. So, regardless of any or our particular
political leanings or beliefs and for the sake of argument, let us assume
that Iran is indeed developing an atomic weapon.
Said powers who have signed massive energy deals with Iran, or who have
concurred with such economic agreements, have done so with the hope of
eventually altering or overturning the longstanding US petro-dollar hegemony
that has had large energy producing nations over a barrel for decades (so to
speak).
Arguably, unhindered access to abundant flows of oil underwrites modern
capitalism. However, there is a widely held perception that a global energy
crisis is approaching due to dissipating oil and gas resources and
exponentially rising demand for said resources. Additionally, the areas with
the largest deposits of petrochemicals and hydrocarbons on earth have also
been some of the most politically unstable.
Under such a combined scenario of increasing resource scarcity as well as
political instabilities surrounding oil-rich regions of the earth, nations
with military might will expectedly assert themselves and their economic
agendas -- the US being the prime example of this phenomenon. American
authors and investment advisors Stephen and Donna Leeb recently outlined the
relationship between oil, capitalism and the need for military might in a
much more candid manner than either the mainstream American press, or
certainly the Bush Administration, have done:
As worldwide oil supplies grow scarcer, and as large areas of the world,
such as China, continue to industrialize, meaning they become ever more avid
consumers of energy, countries will be competing with one another to buy the
oil their economies require. This is a big change, and countries that have
no means of throwing their weight around will lose out. For the U.S.,
military might is the ace in the hole that will ensure that we have access
to diminishing supplies of oil - that our allocations receive favorable
treatment from oil producers....
If all we had to worry about were essentially political crises, we could
maintain and upgrade our military capability at a relatively moderate level
and still have the power and flexibility we need. It's the looming energy
crisis that suggest we will need to build up our defenses at an accelerated
pace....
To understand why energy and defense are so closely linked, consider the
fact that almost all the oil in the world is produced in economically
underdeveloped and hence intrinsically unstable countries. We're not talking
only about Middle Eastern oil producers, thought they obviously fit the
bill. We're also thinking of such countries as Venezuela and Nigeria. In
other words, our economy's lifeblood depends on an assortment of volatile
countries with relatively immature economies....
The U.S. will need the ability to intervene militarily, or to plausibly
threaten to do so, in the event of any major disruption in any oil-producing
country....
To the extent that [the oil producers'] economies become more developed,
they will need to use more oil themselves, and the amount of oil they are
willing to export will shrink. It's not inconceivable that at some point
we'll be implicitly relying on overwhelming military might to ensure that
they continue to export what we need. [Stephen and Donna Leeb, The Oil
Factor: Protect Yourself and Profit from the Coming Energy Crisis Pages
161-164, Time Warner Book Group (copyright 2004)]
An astonishing level of clarity is provided here, all the more so because
this information is written in an investment guide rather than a book
written on political, economic or strategic issues, per say. Such an
energy-focused bottom line was given as well a few years ago by former CIA
agent and advisor to President Clinton, Kenneth Pollack:
"It's the Oil, Stupid - The reason the United States has a legitimate and
critical interest in seeing that Persian Gulf oil continues to flow
copiously and relatively cheaply is simply that the global economy built
over the last 50 years rests on a foundation of inexpensive, plentiful oil,
and if that foundation were removed, the global economy would collapse."
Further proof of the dissipating state of global oil came in a report
submitted on behalf of former Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush,
James Baker: "[T]he world is currently precariously close to utilizing all
of its available global oil production capacity, raising the chances of an
oil supply crisis with more substantial consequences than seen in three
decades."
So, be that as it may, it is undeniable that the US has invaded and occupied
Iraq due to its core energy and strategic interests, rather than for the
reasons stated by the Bush Administration. Anyone still in doubt over this
reality should consult the same US government appointed mid-2001 energy task
force report quoted above on the dangers of a then increasingly wily Saddam
Hussein:
[Tight oil] markets have increased US and global vulnerability to
disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price
of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer, posing a difficult situation
for the US government ... Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to ... the
flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein
has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to
use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets. [Strategic Energy
Policy Challenges For the 21st Century, Report of an Independent Task Force,
Sponsored by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy. Emphasis mine]
Saddam Hussein switched his energy trading currency standard from dollars to
euros as early as 1999, finally solidifying the arrangement in 2002. He
thereby sealed his fate with the US and its "coalition", who wished to send
a stern warning to any other energy producer, OPEC member or otherwise, that
such manipulation with the longstanding petro-dollar arrangement would be
met with staunch resistance by the US.
However, not all of the other large energy producers, and certainly not
Iran, are as politically fragmented and economically dilapidated as was Iraq
after it sustained two decades of sanctions and war. OPEC member Venezuela
has also committed to such a currency move, expectedly drawing the ire of
the US. Further, according to the Financial Times of London, Venezuela very
recently enrolled Iran, its "closest ally in OPEC", in accelerating "a
strategy to steer its oil exports to China and away from its traditional
market of the US."
There are massive global economic stakes behind Iran's future economic
direction and who will ultimately govern it. The US wishes to prevent Tehran
from setting an energy course of its own accord. Period. It ultimately does
not matter to the US government what form of regime occupies Tehran as long
as Iran does not run counter to America's energy and strategic interests.
Despite decades of following this edict tacitly, the US officially codified
it in 1980 with the Carter Doctrine which declared, in response to the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Revolution in Iran, that the secure
flow of Persian Gulf oil and natural gas was in "the vital interests of the
United States of America." In protecting such interests, the US would use
"any means necessary, including military force."
By signing sweeping energy deals with larger Asian nations, as well as
joining a widening global consensus that is leaning away from default US
dollar hegemony, Iran is once again attempting to set its own economic
course. This course in large part results from Iran's Nationalistic
instincts, as it had in the 1950s and mid 1970s, yet also reflects a
necessarily evolving sense of global economic interdependency and
cooperation against the backdrop of falling global oil supplies and
skyrocketing demand for those supplies. As stated recently in the Asia
Times:
The drive for resources is occurring in a world where alliances are
shifting among major oil-producing and consuming nations. A kind of
post-Cold War global lineup against perceived US hegemony seems to be in the
earliest stages of formation, possibly including Brazil, China India, Iran,
Russia and Venezuela. Russian President Vladimir Putin's riposte to a US
strategy of building up its military presence in some of the former [Soviet
Socialist Republic nation-states] has been to ally the Russian and Iranian
oil industries, organize large-scale joint war games with the Chinese
military, and work toward the goal of opening up the shortest, cheapest, and
potentially most lucrative new oil route of all, southward out of the
Caspian Sea area to Iran. In the meantime, the European Union is now
negotiating to drop its ban on arms shipments to China (much to the publicly
expressed chagrin of the Pentagon). Russia has also offered a stake in its
recently nationalized Yukos (a leading, pro-Western Russian oil company
forced into bankruptcy by the Putin government) to China. [Michael T. Klare,
The oil that drives the US military, Asia Times online, 10.09.04.]
With this wider picture of Russian, Chinese, Venezuelan, Indian, Pakistani
and even European symbiotic involvement in Iran's economic and diplomatic
ambitions, one wonders if the US plans to, or even can, use such implied
means in defending its energy interests in the manner outlined by both the
Carter Doctrine as well as by the half-century of general US strategic
policy in the Middle East.
A significant portion of US interests involve keeping the pricing and
trading of energy resources, and thus the functioning of the general global
economy, anchored to the US dollar standard. Indeed, the stakes have never
been higher for the US economically, or for the world. America's massive and
growing account and trade deficits, along with its Himalayan-sized national
debt totaling $7.6 trillion , threaten its economy, the global economy, and
certainly the dollar's global reserve currency role. "Never before has the
guardian of the world's main reserve currency been its biggest net debtor,"
proclaimed The Economist recently.
As a result of these systemic fiscal predicaments, the US Federal Reserve is
cornered and limited in its choice of actions with regard to available
monetary and fiscal policies. The dollar is dropping in value against other
currencies because the US has no other choice -- it must devalue its
currency, while concurrently raising interest rates, in order to spark
foreign demand for its products while simultaneously preventing a flight on
the dollar by foreign central banks (who have overwhelmingly replaced
foreign private investors as the main purchasers of US Treasury bonds over
the past four years). The US finances its deficits by issuing credit to such
an extent that a credit bubble is forming, posing grave deflationary
pressures for the global economic system which is (thus far) so dependent on
the US economy.
How is this wider, increasingly dismal economic picture related to America's
policy towards Iran? Answer: Again, safe, predictable access to (read:
control of), global petroleum and natural gas reserves underwrite US dollar
hegemony. Oil is the final arbiter for the health of global capitalism -- a
system that, despite US Monetarist and market fundamentalist proclamations
of unlimited abundances and unhindered fiscal freedoms, is actually quite
limited by stubbornly tangible manifestations of resource scarcity.
Iran, sitting on massive reserves of oil and natural gas, recognizes this
reality, as do the nations Iran is signing energy and cooperation contracts
with (be they tight US allies such as India, or not, such as Venezuela under
Hugo Chavez). Thus, in many fundamental ways, the United States is much more
dependent upon Iran than the other way around. Should Iran proceed with the
collective nations' plan of prying OPEC away from the dollar standard,
something the cartel is increasingly doing on its own anyway, this could
prove disastrous to US driven market fundamentalism and the dollar as the
world's fiat currency, let alone the obscenely over-leveraged US economy
itself.
With the stakes so catastrophically high, it is not hard to see why the US
and Israel will stop at nothing to unravel Iran, however much potential
death and destruction such an action would bring about in Iran. The fight
will thus not be for "Democracy in Iran", but for US strategic interests, as
it has been for over fifty years. The battle will not only be against Iran's
ultimate ability to sustainably determine its own economic destiny, but
against the aforementioned global economic inertia away from a fiscally and
imperially overstretched sense of American economic and military
predominance. These are the ultimate stakes; this is the abject reality all
Iranians must face in today's tense world.
Iranians in the West are naturally against the theocratic regime that has
autocratically run Iran for over a generation -- so much so that they are
blinded to the wider, unprecedented geopolitical and global economic picture
in which Iran plays an increasingly central part. Considering such tense
stakes, Iran's inherent Nationalism, as well as how interdependent Iran's
economy has become with those of China, India, Russia, Venezuela, the
European Union and other nations, it is not inaccurate to sense that any
show of force against Iran could be the modern equivalent of the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.
Expectedly, Iranians in the West, however much they oppose the Islamic
Republic, overwhelmingly reject the option of force against Iran. Iranians
everywhere also recognize, and largely concur with, the widespread ambition
of Iran to arm itself adequately against ever again being turned into
anyone's client-state, which has been a role assigned by larger industrial
powers onto energy-resource-rich nations in the developing world for decades
(a role that seems to keep said nations in a perpetually "developing",
rather than "developed", state). Such Iranian ambitions existed in the early
1970s as well. In fact, the coy language of the late Shah of Iran at that
period did not differ significantly with regard to the need and use of
Iranian nuclear energy than it does today:
Q: Do you plan to buy nuclear power plants, even a nuclear fuel
reprocessing plant, from the US?
A: I intend certainly to buy nuclear plants from the U.S. if they are
competitive with those offered by France and Germany. On reprocessing
[plants], not yet, because it is only economical if you process large
amounts. Maybe one day we shall have so many atomic plants that we will have
to do that in our own country. But don't forget that we signed the
non-proliferation treaty, and when we sign something we feel obligated to
it.
-- Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, U.S. News & World Report, March 22, 1976.
The Core Issue for Iranians worldwide
Iranians must realize where the world is going economically, acknowledge
Iran's pivotal positioning in such unprecedented changes, recall with
sobriety Iran's modern history vis-à-vis its role as a major energy
producer, and then decide what's best for Iran -- including what's best for
Iranian relations with the West.
Ultimately, when presented with the true gravity of the situation facing
their homeland, Iranians from Westwood to London to Sydney will match in
word and deed the Nationalism of the bright, hungry and aware Iranian youth
in Tehran -- those who realize what the stakes represent for Iran and the
world. True Iranians who show fidelity towards the enduring grandeur of Pars
will speak through one Nationalistic Aryan voice.
With that said, it is best if the Iranians in the West start early down this
path and remove any blinders or preconceived notions they may retain
regarding the bottom-line positions, stated or unstated, for the US, UK and
Israel on Iran. The past demonstrably serves as prologue on this matter.
Text with references:
http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2005/February/Beedaar/Beedaarsheed.doc [MS
Word 300 KB]
About
Author is a concerned Iranian expatriot living in the West.
[1] Seymour M. Hersh, The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon can now do in
secret. The New Yorker: Fact Section, 01.24.05 and 01.31.05. Online
01.17.05: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact
[2] The following texts detail well the nature of dissipating global oil
reserves and their resultant geopolitical and economic effects: Hubbert's
Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage by Kenneth S. Deffeyes, The Oil
Factor: How Oil Controls the Economy and Your Financial Future by Donna and
Stephen Leeb, and Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire
at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert and Catherine Austin
Fitts.
[3] “The [Iran / China] relationship has grown out of China’s soaring energy
needs – crude oil imports surged nearly 40 percent in the first eight months
of this year, according to state media -- and Iran’s growing appetite for
consumer goods for a population that has doubled since the 1979 revolution.”
Robin Wright, Iran’s New Alliance With China Could Cost U.S. Leverage,
Washington Post, 11.17.04, Page A21.
[4] India and Iran in gas export deal, BBC News World Edition, 01.07.05;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4155597.stm
[5] PAK PM Visit to Expand Cooperation, www.Iran-Daily.com 02.08.05.
[6] According to the government-leaning Tehran Times, "The Iran-India
agreement on [natural gas] exports will pave the way for the implementation
of the project to pipe Iranian gas to India via Pakistan and the dream of
the peace pipeline could become a reality in the near future." India finds a
$40bn friend in Iran, Asia Times online, 01.11.05.
[7] Sergei Blagov, Russia sticks with Iran, Asia Times online, 07.27.04.
[8] Russia market braces after oil magnate’s arrest, ChinaDaily.com,
10.27.2003. Also, Russia: Richard Perle to the rescue in Russia,
Balkananalysis.com, 01.13.04.
[9] Jonathan Steele, Ukraine’s postmodern coup d’etat: Yushchenko got the US
nod, and money flowed in to his supporters, The Guardian Unlimited-UK,
11.26.04.
[10] Ian Traynor, US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev, The Guardian
Unlimited-UK, 11.26.04.
[11] Washington and Moscow on Caspian collision course, http://cshink.com
12.3.03. See also: Kaveh Afrasiabi and Abbas Maleki, Iran’s Foreign Policy
After 11 September, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Winter / Spring
2003 – Volume IX, Issue 2, Pages 260-261.
[12] Everest, Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and the US Global Agenda. Page
92, 93. Author Everest in turn cited: John K. Cooley, US keeping an eye on
Soviet tactics as Iran crisis unfolds. Christian Science Monitor, 11.28.79,
Page A10.
[13] Ibid., citing: Kevin Klose, Soviets, in scathing Attack, Call Iran
Mission ‘Madness’, Washington Post, 04.26.80, Page A18.
[14] http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Articles/1217.aspx , citing a
TehranTimes.com / IRNA report written from Moscow, posted 07.28.04.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Stephen and Donna Leeb, The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself and Profit
from the Coming Energy Crisis Pages 161-164, Time Warner Book Group
(copyright 2004).
[17] Kenneth M. Pollack, Securing the Gulf, Foreign Affairs, July / August
2003, pp. 2-4. Initially cited in Everest, Page 251.
[18] Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For the 21st Century, Report of an
Independent Task Force, Sponsored by the James A. Baker Institute for Public
Policy of Rice University and the Council on Foreign Relations, April, 2001.
Available at:
www.bakerinstitute.org/Pubs/studies/bipp_study_15/bippstudy15.html The
Baker Institute is headed by James A. Baker, III, Secretary of State under
President George H.W. Bush. Initially cited in Everest, Page 252.
[19] Ibid. Initially cited in Everest, Page 260.
[20] Geoffrey Heard, Not Oil, But Dollars v. Euros, Global Policy Forum,
March 2003.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
[21] Roy S. Carson, Venezuelan Move to Replace US$ with the Euro Upsetting
Washington More than Saddam’s Euro Conversion Last November, Global Policy
Forum, June 2003.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/0624euro.htm See
also Sudhir Chadda, After Iraq it is Venezuela - the next oil confrontation
between America and Euro Zone and this time a new super power coalition of
India, China, Russia and Brazil makes the difference, IndiaDaily.com
editorial, 11.27.04.
[22] Venezuela enlists Iran to steer oil to China, Financial Times, UK,
01.31.05.
[23] Modern history shows this to be true, as the US has prevented viable
democracy (I.E. that form of government which is coupled with sovereign
economic determinism) from taking root in Iran in the past. A history of
America’s opposition to the goals of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh as well as the
Shah of Iran (in the latter, more nationalized years of his reign) will
provide enlightenment on this issue.
[24] Michael T. Klare, The oil that drives the US military, Asia Times
online, 10.09.04.
[25] Tony Wesolowsky, When oil peaks…, Asia Times online, 01.26.05. Article
synopsizes succinctly the arguments that “Peak Oil” analysts are making
regarding limited energy reserves and the political changes that will result
from this phenomenon.
[26] Marshall Auerback, Giant in decline, Asia Times online, 01.25.05.
[27] “In a one-superpower world, [actions by the nations wishing to change
global energy economics] is pretty brazen behavior by all concerned, but it
is symptomatic of a growing perception of the United States as a declining,
overstretched giant, albeit one with the capacity to strike out lethally if
wounded.” Ibid. See also: Michael Lind, How America Became the World’s
Dispensable Nation, Financial Times UK, 01.25.05. Article lists other
symptoms of the world’s economic and military shift away from US dominance.
[28] http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm ;
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ ; http://www.house.gov/istook/debt.htm
[29] The future of the dollar: The passing of the buck? Economist.com –
Opinion section, 12.02.04.
[30] “The Fed’s reliance on forecasting of the economy to set reactive
policies is an act of abdication of its monetary authority.” Henry C.K. Liu,
Fed’s pugnacious policies hurt economies, Asia Times online, 01.10.04, Page
5. Liu continues: “One gets the impression from [Fed Chairman Alan
Greenspan] that the greatest threat to the US is not terrorism, but
unmanageable risk to the economy that he permits by policy.” Ibid.
[31] “When the US deficits return to equilibrium, a severe and protracted
global recession is likely to ensue unless policy makers can devise a new
source of global aggregate demand to replace that which is currently being
provided by the US current account deficit.” Interview with Richard Duncan
on his 2002 book, The Dollar Crisis: Causes Consequences Cures,
http://www.business-in-asia.com/dollar_crisis.html 2003.
[32] Billionaire financier George Soros, in reflecting on personal
experiences as well as paying further homage to his early mentor Philosopher
Karl Popper, recently forwarded a prescient summary by stating: “Communism
sought to abolish the market mechanism and to impose collective control over
all economic activities. Market fundamentalism seeks to abolish collective
decision making and to impose the supremacy of market values over all
political and social values. Both extremes are wrong. We need to recognize
that all human constructs are flawed. Perfection is beyond our reach. We
must content ourselves with the second-best: An imperfect society that
holds itself open to improvement. Global capitalism is badly in need of
improvement.” [emphasis mine] Soros, Open Society: Reforming global
capitalism, Public Affairs/Perseus Books Group, Page xxiv.
[33]“Oil exporters have sharply reduced their exposure to the US dollar over
the past three years, according to data from the Bank for International
Settlements. Members of [OPEC] have cut the proportion of deposits held in
dollars from 75 per cent in the third quarter of 2001 to 61.5 per cent.”
Steve Johnson and Javier Blas, Opec sharply reduces dollar exposure,
Financial Times, UK, 12.06.04. See also: James Turk, Opec Has Already
turned to the Euro, http://goldmoney.com/en/commentary/2004-02-18.html
[34] The Archduke’s assassination is widely considered to have triggered the
commencement of World War I, and even World War II by some accounts.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/duke.htm
[35] Iranian Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose U.S. Military Strikes against
Iran, Press Release, The National Iranian American Council, 01.31.05.
http://www.niacouncil.org/pressreleases/press244.asp
[36] Warning to America: ‘A False Sense of Security Will Destroy You’.
Exclusive Interview with The Shah of Iran. U.S. News & World Report,
03.22.76, Pages 57-58.
http://www.iraninstitutefordemocracy.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=242
http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2005/February/Beedaar/index.html