REAL Reason For US Wars.... The PetroDollar [#politics, #war]

The US Dollar makes up 2/3rds of the worlds global reserve currency. This is because nearly every oil-exporting country in the world exclusively sells their oil in dollars, so nations are forced to hoard large amounts of the dollar.
There are two countries that don't sell their oil in the dollar: Syria, and Iran.
If these two countries joined forces, got Venezuela on their side, maybe a few other countries, and then made an economic treaty with the BRICS nations, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, to buy their oil in a currency other than the US dollar, the economy would collapse
All countries in the world would send their massive hoards of the dollar back to the Fed in exchange for whichever currency replaces it. The value of the dollar would shrink dramatically and the Fed would be forced to take steps to shrink the money supply to stem massive inflation. The raising of the Federal Funds rate would mean that there would not be enough new loans created to pay off old loans (which is necessary, because there is always more debt in the economy than there is money, because money is created with interest attached, from the very beginning we are all indebted to a small cabal that sits behind the federal reserve). The defaulting of loans would lead to a chain reaction that would collapse the $700,000,000,000,000 derivatives market. In addition, the Fed wouldn't be able to mindlessly pump money into the economy anymore such as with their current policy of quantitative easing.
In 2001, Iraq began selling their oil in the Euro. We invaded.
In 2010 Gaddafi proposed a new currency called the Gold Dinar to replace the dollar for oil sales. We bombed the shit out of his country and caused a regime change.
Syria moved away from the Dollar in 06 and Iran in 08. That is what this is all about. There are other geopolitical objectives, sure, such as the pipeline that Syria signed with Iran instead of the US friendly Qatar, but the Petrodollar is the king. It is literally the only reason the dollar and US economy is stable. The entirety of the Western financial elite need the Petrodollar system and they are willing to go to war and kill millions to defend it.
Some food for thought: how are they able to keep discussion about the petrodollar completely out of the mainstream media and politics? Hundreds, maybe thousands of people acting in concert to lie to the American people for another war. And they will do the same for Iran.

http://rt.com/news/iran-attack-us-allegations-243/ wrote:
Any rhetoric regarding Iran’s nuclear program and the insistence on crippling it is nothing more than a US attempt to force regime change for one more receptive to maintaining the hegemony of the petrodollar.
The world now knows the truth about the US and how they conduct their affairs.  US hostilities toward Iran have nothing to do with nuclear weapons development.  If that were the case, then North Korea and Pakistan would be facing similar sanctions and threats, but they aren’t. The difference of course is in what lies beneath the ground – oil. Iran has it and the other guys don’t.
At the heart of the issue is not Iran’s dubious attempt to build nuclear weapons, or even oil, but how that oil is paid for.  In 1973, Richard Nixon promised King Faisal of Saudi Arabia that the US would protect Saudi Arabian oilfields from any and all interested parties seeking to forcefully wrest them from the House of Saud.  It’s important to remember that in 1973, Saudi Arabia didn’t have a fraction of the military and ground forces it possesses today (almost exclusively US manufactured weapons) and the USSR was very much a threat.
In return Saudi Arabia, and by extension OPEC, agreed to sell their oil in US dollars only.  As if that weren’t sweet enough, as part of the deal, they were required to invest their profits in US treasuries, bonds and bills. The real zinger is that all countries purchasing oil from OPEC had to do so in US dollars, or ‘petrodollars’.  
This strengthened the US dollar, resulting in a steady US economic growth cycle throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Countries purchasing OPEC oil started buying US treasury bills, bonds and securities to ensure they could continue purchasing OPEC oil.  This worked fine for the US until 2001.
No plan, however well formulated, functions smoothly indefinitely.
2001, enter Saddam Hussein. He floated a plan to sell oil for European currencies in lieu of petrodollars.  Shortly after Iraq was ‘suddenly’ found to be seeking and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction – allegations spearheaded by the US. The world knows what happened, suffice it to say that Saddam is dead and Iraq is ‘back on track’, selling its oil for petrodollars once again.
Muammar Gaddafi harbored the Lockerbie Bombers and allowed various terrorist organizations establish training camps in Libya.  He tried to buy a nuke from China in 1972. In 1977, he approached Pakistan, then India. He sought nerve gas from Thailand.  In spite of well over fifty failed assassination attempts on Gaddafi by Israel, the US and the UK, Libya was left to its own devices for the most part. Seeking nukes and harboring terrorists is one thing, but threatening the petrodollar is quite another.  Gaddafi made a fatal error when he decided to move away from the petrodollar in favor of other currencies.  This simply was not tolerated by the US.  Having already played the WMD card in Iraq, something new was pulled from the US ‘regime change’ grab bag. Within a year, ‘internal’ elements rose up in rebellion against Gaddafi and now he is dead.  Long live the petrodollar.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), suggested last year that the Euro would be a more suitable oil reserve currency than the US Dollar.  Within three months of that statement, allegations of rape ruined his career, derailing his bid for the French Presidency in the process.  Soon thereafter, all charges were dropped, but of course, le dommage était fait – the damage was done. Christine Lagarde, DSK’s replacement as head of the IMF sees no reason to change the current arrangement, naturellement.
The Iran situation is a little trickier. The US has sought to dismantle Iran’s regime ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, so this round of hostilities, while not new, reflects a new level of intensity.  Why, after thirty years of hostility, has the US ratcheted up its rhetoric? As Obama stated in his recent State of the Union address, when it comes to Iran and the insistence they dismantle their nuclear program, “no options are off the table”.  By stating ‘no options’ this would include nuclear deployment as a deterrent.
The answer of course is that Iran is now seeking to disengage itself from the petrodollar dynamic.  In 2005, Iran sought to create an Iranian Oil Exchange, thus bypassing the US controlled petrodollar.  Fear that western powers would freeze accounts in European and London banks put an end to that plan.  
But that was not the end of their attempts, and Iran sought other ways to get around the petrodollar noose. There are rumors that India, which imports 12% of their oil from Iran, has agreed to purchase oil for gold. Energy trade with China, importing 15% of its oil and natural gas from Iran may be settled in gold, yuan, and rial. South Korea plans to buy 10% of their oil from Iran in 2012, and unless Seoul sides with American and European sanctions, it is likely to use gold or their sovereign currency to pay for it. Also, Iran is already dumping the dollar in its trade with Russia in favor of rials and rubles.
Iran is breaking the back of the petrodollar. Others have tried, but Iran is succeeding.  To understand how disastrous this is for the US, one must have a basic understanding of how critical a role the petrodollar plays in the economic health of the US.