Behind the Drums of War with Iran: Nuclear Weapons or Compound Interest
Center for Research on Globalization, Canada
by Ellen Brown Global Research
On October 25, 2007, the United States announced harsh new penalties on the Iranian military and its state-owned banking systems. Sanctions, bellicose rhetoric and the implicit threat of military action are goads for another war, one that critics fear is more likely to ignite a nuclear holocaust than prevent one. The question is, what makes Iran such a serious threat? The official explanation is that it is planning to develop nuclear weapons, but the head of the UN watchdog agency IAEA says he has “no concrete evidence” of an Iranian weapons program.1 Moreover, even if there were one, a number of countries have tested or possess nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including Pakistan, North Korea, India, and probably Israel; yet we don’t consider that grounds for military action. Iran would just be joining a long list of nuclear powers.
Another theory says the push for war is all about oil; but Iran supplies only 15 percent of total Persian Gulf oil exports, and its oil is already for sale.22 We don’t need to go to war for it. We can just buy it.
A third theory says the saber-rattling is all about defending the dollar. Iran is threatening to open its own oil bourse, and it is already selling about 85 percent of its oil in non-dollar currencies. Iran has broken the petrodollar stranglehold imposed in the 1970s, when OPEC entered into a covert agreement with the United States to sell oil only in U.S. dollars. As Dr. Krassimir Petrov explained this potential motive in a 2006 editorial in Gold-Eagle.com:
As long as the dollar was the only acceptable payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world. If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist. Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars. . . . If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political pressure or military means, to change his mind.3
An interesting theory, but it still fails to explain all the facts. In a March 2006 editorial in Asia Times Online, William Engdahl noted that war with Iran has been in the cards as part of the U.S. Greater Middle East strategy since the 1990s, long before Iran threatened to open its own oil bourse.4 And Iran is not alone in wanting to drop the dollar as its oil currency. To curb currency risks, Russia is planning to open an Energy Stock Exchange in St. Petersburg next year to trade oil in rubles, something that will have significantly more impact on the dollar than Iran’s oil bourse. Central bankers in Venezuela, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates have all said they will be investing less of their reserves in dollar assets due to the dollar’s weakening global position.5 Those countries are liable to switch to other currencies for their oil trades as well. Will the United States feel compelled to invade them all?
Each of these theories has some merit, but none of them seems to adequately explain the war drums. What is so special about Iran that keeps it squarely in the cross-hairs of the U.S. military? Here is another possibility: besides oil and the dollar, Iran poses a serious threat to a secret financial weapon that keeps a global banking empire in power . . . .
The Bankers’ Financial Weapon of Mass Destruction
Around 1980, when interest rates were soaring, Johnny Carson quipped on The Tonight Show that “Scientists have developed a powerful new weapon that destroys people but leaves buildings standing - it’s called the 17% interest rate.” Compound interest is the secret weapon that has allowed a global banking cartel to control most of the resources of the world. [more]