Get Ready for it... Invasion of Iran

[addicted2freedom]

Iran Dumps US dollar for oil trades:

Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, has stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars, a top Oil Ministry official said Wednesday, in a concerted attempt to reduce reliance on Washington at a time of tension over Tehran's nuclear program and suspected involvement in Iraq.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the depreciating dollar a "worthless piece of paper" at a rare summit last year in Saudi Arabia attended by state leaders from OPEC countries.

Background:
+ 1989/1990: Kuwait defies OPEC and increases oil production by 40% resulting in collapsing oil prices and hurting Iraq's economy. Kuwait was also accused of "slant drilling" into Iraq territory.
+ 1990: Iraq goes after Kuwait and the U.S. shortly goes after Iraq.
+ September, 2000: Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq was no longer going to accept dollars for oil being sold under the UN’s Oil-for-Food program, and decided to switch to the euro as Iraq’s oil export currency
+ March 2003: U.S. invades Iraq for no concrete reason (no WMDs, no links to terrorism, etc).
+ 2005: Iran announced their desire to establish the Iranian Oil Bourse, which is a non-US currency based oil exchange market.
+ November, 2007: the National Intelligence Estimate is released and states that "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program"
+ December 8, 2007, Iran converted all of its oil export payments to non-US currencies.
+ January 7, 2008: Iranian speedboats reportedly threaten warship in Strait of Hormuz. Later shown to be a falsified story.
+ Early February, 2008: On 5 occasions undersea internet cables were mysteriously cut [a source]
+ February 17, 2008: Iran opened its oil bourse.
+ April 30, 2008: Iran completely cuts oil trade from U.S. dollar.
+ Before Bush leaves office: U.S. invades Iran either after an attack on US/Israel personnel or after a "nuclear facility" is found with satellite imagery (similar to Syria's recently bombed "nuclear shack").

Iran has been demonized and provoked to give us a reason to invade them, but they have resisted. The trends are so blatantly obvious. It's the oil stupid!

Russia and Venezuela are on the horizon also...

[ReefBlue]

We'll show us. We'll stop accepting currency from the world's biggest consumer of our only export.

[addicted2freedom]

The US does not import oil from Iran, which by the way has the 2nd largest reserve of oil in the world. Other countries do though and they used to purchase it in US dollars, and therein lies the crux of the issue. Since 1971, the US dollar stopped being backed by gold (thanks to Nixon). However, a couple of years later, the US dollar became the denomination for oil (thanks to Saudi Arabia and OPEC). Therefore, all countries wanting to buy/sell oil have to keep US dollars on reserve. This gives the US dollar a pseudo-backing (petrodollar). That's why countries still take US treasury bonds. That's one reason we've been prosperous with a fiat currency while other countries with central banks are not.

But if countries stop trading oil in US dollars, there's no reason to keep US dollars on reserve. The faith in the dollar is gone. The value of the dollar plummets. Inflation sky rockets. No one will accept our treasury bonds, which is devastating since we're now a country of imports.

[JoeWilliams]

Not being a terrorist sympathizer, I find it hard to generate much sympathy for an avowed and self proclaimed enemy of our nation such as Iran. We are currently engaged in a world war, and Iraq's location between two of the major nations bankrolling and exporting attacks on us is one of the multiple concrete reasons for our presence there that those spreading enemy propaganda claim do not exist.

[phill]

Thank you Joe well said.

[GunLawyer001]

Waaaaay too much tin foil in use here.

I still don't get the argument. The loonies say that we are over there just for the oil, and the "proof" is that Bush is from Texas and they have oil there. But we don't get the oil even after we take charge of Iraq, our oil prices are at record highs. Somehow, all this proves their point.

Do we need brain damage to find this credible? Is this why the same people believe in human-caused Global Climate Change? Has proof become irrelevant? Doesn't anybody here remember the UN looking for proof that Hussein destroyed the WMD's that HE ADMITTED HAVING? Remember, those WMD's that he actually used on the Kurds? The ones that we found in Iraq, but they were old and from the 1990's, so they didn't count? (Try that argument with ATF, that your unregistered machine gun is from the 1990's so it doesn't count.) We all know for a fact that he had WMD's, we all saw the pics of the delivery devices, saw the dead Kurds, but Landru says that there were no WMD's so we all repeat the mantra that Bush lied so that we blend in at Festival.

Jeebus, I hope that the frothy spittle crowd doesn't decide that gravity is a matter of personal choice, or we'll be ducking falling morons every day.

[headcase]

We are going in there sooner or later. If we don't, China will. Iran has been playing a dangerous game for close to thirty years, and it is about to come to an end. They are responsible for creating or funding, at least half of the worlds Islamic terror groups. It has a great deal to do with the oil there. It also has a great deal to do with their decision to play tough guy with the big kids. If the OP has such a soft spot for this piece of crap country, maybe he should send a letter to Ahmadinejad begging him to reconsider his constant rhetoric, terror funding, and chest beating. OASN~ Just because the BBC says something, doesn't make it true.....

[JDePietro]

This is the result of an arrogant foreign policy.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
-Thomas Jefferson

We have entangled ourselves with the impunities of both European empires and now third world countries. And we have no one to blame but our own lustful arrogance. Iran, Iraq, Al, Quada all of these nations and more have every right to be mad at us. We have invaded their soil cast out their leaders and proclaimed our panoz on life far superior to theirs. And this isn't the first time we have done it! We have waged silent psuedo wars for more than 50 years!

I am not a terrorist sympathizer, and I am not preaching a isolationist policy I am simply stating the facts. We need to press our goverment to look not to policies dreamed up by the CIA and themselves, but by the Constitution. There are very clear orders and they were not meant to be used when we felt like it.

“The intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and not always considerate press, as well as the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from Congress”
~William Howard Taft

[addicted2freedom]

Not being a terrorist sympathizer, I find it hard to generate much sympathy for an avowed and self proclaimed enemy of our nation such as Iran. We are currently engaged in a world war, and Iraq's location between two of the major nations bankrolling and exporting attacks on us is one of the multiple concrete reasons for our presence there that those spreading enemy propaganda claim do not exist.

Enemies in the same way that the Iraqis were our enemies? I am no terrorist sympathizer. I am a civilian (foreign and domestic) sympathizer or even a truth sympathizer. Invading a country in the name of terrorism, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, displacing millions of civilians, destroying the countries infrastructure, etc. accomplishes nothing towards the goal of killing a handful of terrorists. If anything invasion, occupation, and nation building breeds terrorism as evident by the complete absence of terrorist activity in Iraq before the war. Why is it that we have special forces that can take out a target from miles away, and yet we cannot take out a group of idiots in a cave or in their camps or in their offices?

Why is it that we have supported, funded, and planned the overthrow of democratic governments to install oppressive dictatorships? Why is it that we also entered WWI, WWII, the Vietnam wars under false pretenses while some made trillions and we suffered? Why is it that we still deal with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China even though they knowingly sponsor terrorism? Why is it that we were being spied on during the Clinton era before the war on terrorism? Why is it that the Afghanistan mujahideen (which includes Osama bin Laden and spawned the Taliban and al Qaeda) was radicalized, trained, armed, and funded by the US? Why haven't we invaded Pakistan knowing that Osama bin Laden is holed up in the mountains or that one of their officials wired money to the 9/11 hijackers?

There is no war on terrorism. There is a war on your rights, sovereignty, and free will. It's a hoax to undermine everything great about this country. It is being used to get into perpetual wars. It is being used to instill fear just like global warming and the war on drugs so that the puppeteers can go about their secretive, subversive business as usual.

A band of thugs will never directly destroy this country, but the sinking our economy and oppressing our rights will.

[billamj]

This is the result of an arrogant foreign policy.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
-Thomas Jefferson

Never quote Jefferson when it comes to foreign policy. Considering his relationships in France, England and the Netherlands and then his use of the military against a foreign power that is a bit too hypocritical.