THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR AND ARAB OIL
(Posted 2006-01-17 21:46:20 by Ray Lopez)

There is a wonderful article posted at EnergyBulletin.net, entitled _The
Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse [ http://www.energybulletin.net/12125.html ]_
written by Krassimir Petrov.  Among other things, this article puts into
perspective the real reasons the Bush administration decided to go to war
against Iraq.  It turns out that in 2000 Saddam wanted to begin accepting
euros for oil, instead of American dollars.  No big deal? Well, the
American empire is based upon the use of dollars as the de facto world
currency.  America gets to print billions of dollars, and the rest of the
world gives us their various and sundry resources in exchange for those
dollars.  And why, you ask, would the rest of the world want to be keeping
around piles and piles of US dollars?  Because OPEC only accepts dollars,
per an agreement reached with the US.  It is obvious that in this scenario
any change to allow other currencies to be exchanged for oil would be
disastrous for the US, as it would immediately render the dollar worthless.
 

The article ends with a discussion of Iran's plans to open an "oil bourse",
allowing euros to be exchanged for Iranian oil.   Needless to say the
current US administration will likely respond to this threat in the same
ham-handed fashion that it has used to respond to Saddam.

Petrov does an excellent job of putting this issue into a historical
context, and also presents America's possible responses to Iran's
initiatives.  

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