A
switch to the euro “is really possible,” according to Russian
economist and Putin advisor Yevgeny Gavrilenkov. "Why not? More
than half of Russia's oil trade is with Europe. But there will
be great opposition to this from the United States."
Gayrilenkov can be forgiven his understatement. Russian
President Vladimir Putin dropped his bombshell as if casually
stating the time of day. Is Russia considering a switch from
dollar-pricing of petroleum? “We do not rule out that it is
possible. That would be interesting for our European partners,"
Putin told reporters at a joint news conference with German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in the Ural Mountains region of
Russia.
Interesting, indeed. Even more important than the huge and
immediate boost that a Russian oil-euro arrangement would
provide to the European Union, the move would signal the
definitive end of America’s artificial dollar-domination of the
planet, a privileged status the U.S. has abused as a weapon
since the end of World War II.
As Dr.
Sonja Ebron wrote in 
,
February 20, “Given
the highly leveraged and fragile state of our economy, an OPEC
switch from the dollar to the euro would bring a quick and
devastating dollar and Wall Street crash that would make 1929
look like a $50 casino bet.” (See “Why
African Americans Should Oppose the War.”)
One month before the U.S. invasion, Dr. Ebron warned of the
monstrous blowback that would result:
The shrinking superpower
The Bush men launched their offensive largely to ensure that oil
would continue to be priced in dollars. American military
dominance of the Middle East and a series of “regime changes”
would eliminate the euro-threat – or so the theory went. An
opposite chain of events has occurred, with the impetus coming,
not from OPEC, but from an increasingly confident and assertive
Russia, for whom Shock and Awe is mere fireworks.
Putin displayed his card to the world – a bargaining chip with
the EU and an implicit threat to the United States – because he
could. The “sole superpower” cannot stop him, but must
instead come up with terms that outweigh the benefits of
euro-logic. The Bush Pirate’s quest for a global market
subordinate to American fiat has failed. This shift in the
global relationship of forces should have been expected when
Bush declared war against world order.
It is the logical result of, and answer to, the president’s 2002
ultimatum, “either you are with us, or against us.” The planet
now prepares to turn on its own axis. Once set in motion, the
effects will be irreversible, no matter which party wins the
White House in 2004. Henry C. K. Liu got it right in his
far-sighted April 5
Asia Times piece, “The War that may end the age of
superpower.”
Saudi Arabia is the number one oil exporter. Having severed its
military alliance with the U.S., the Saudi royal family may be
ready to drop the other shoe. "The Saudi Crown Prince [Abdullah
Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud]'s visit to Russia was of great
significance and the regime is talking about closer cooperation
with LUKoil and other Russian companies," says Council on
Foreign Relations oil analyst Youssef Ibrahim.
No nation is eager to upset the global currency regime. (“We do
not want to hurt prices on the market," President Putin was
quick to add, at his Urals press conference.) The Saudi princes,
who value their dollar-denominated wealth more highly than the
teachings of Wahhabi Islam, are by inclination among the least
likely candidates to lead an OPEC euro-shift. Yet relentless
pressures from Ariel Sharon’s Israel, its lobbyists and allies
on Capitol Hill, and from the Likkud group within the Bush
administration, have pushed the Saudis closer to the breakpoint.
If Russia goes euro, they will likely follow – sooner, if there
is one more military outrage against a sovereign Arab state. (In
that sense, the fate of the dollar may be in Sharon’s hands.)
Iran, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, would go euro in
an instant, once it saw others headed for the door. Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chavez relishes the idea. His nation exports
about as much oil as Iran.
Muslim Indonesia, the oil giant of the Pacific with huge
contracts to supply the Chinese, actively debates the merits of
the euro. In an April 17 report filed by Bloomberg’s Tokyo
bureau (“Indonesia
May Dump Dollar; Rest of Asia, Too?”), Indonesian Vice
President
Hamzah Haz was quoted:
"One thing is for sure, the adoption of the euro as an
alternative means of payments could be an effective solution to
speculative dollar-oriented dealings.''
Rule by idiots
Iraq – the invasion and resistance – has worked a sea change in
global relations. History is galloping ahead of every scenario
that could have been envisioned before the Bush Pirates set out
on their hegemonic mission. However, the scheming fools at the
Project for a New American Century must be given their due;
only the most monumental stupidity, arrogance and willful
ignorance could have set the reigning superpower on such a
calamitous course toward political isolation, economic
instability, and shrinking relevance to the designs of mankind.
Saddam Hussein began trading Iraqi oil in euros in November
2000. "This was another reason [why the U.S. attacked]," said
analyst Ibrahim in his Moscow Times interview. "There is a great
political dimension to this. Slowly more power and muscle is
moving from the United States to the EU, and that's mainly
because of what happened in Iraq."
The Bush men also saw the Iraq invasion as a world-remaking,
catalytic event. They destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, so that
corporate cronies could reap billions “reconstructing” the
nation along the Houston model, as a base for further
penetration of the Middle East and Central Asia. The unraveling
came quickly. Now, even the handpicked, non-governing Iraqi
Governing Council looks forward to voiding the criminally
exorbitant reconstruction contracts imposed by the occupation
authorities. George Bush
"has signed many papers,” said Ammar Abdul Aziz, son of
prominent Shi’ite Council member Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. “But one
day the occupiers will leave. The Iraqi people will not allow
any of these contracts." (See “A
Shi’ite Warning to America,” Asia Times, October 11.)
Having painfully experienced America’s way of doing business, a
sovereign Iraq could be expected to join the euro-rush.
Renowned political journalist and author Tariq Ali, speaking on
Democracy Now! October 10, peers through the Iraqi end of
the tunnel: “The big thing will happen when the Shi’ite groups
in the south of Iraq decide enough is enough and join the
resistance and, when they do, it really will be the beginning of
the end. There’s no way they can carry on.”
The inevitable collapse of the U.S. occupation and the looming
shift to the euro will dictate the broad outlines of world
affairs in the near term, and dramatically impact conditions of
life in the United States.
Journalist Sydney Schanberg, writing in the current issue of the
the
Village Voice, wonders what happened to the Pentagon’s
seven-nation, five-year Middle East-North Africa war campaign –
the plan Wesley Clark learned of in November, 2001, but didn’t
get around to telling the public about until publication of his
latest book, last month. (See ,
“Wesley
Clark: Dishonest to the Core, and Probably Nuts,” October
9.) “How far has the White House taken this plan?” asks
Schanberg. “And how long can the president keep the nation in
the dark, emerging from his White House cocoon only to speak to
us in slogans and the sterile language of pep rallies?”
The Project for a New American Century folks are still in
charge, Condoleezza Rice’s
new duties, notwithstanding. It is their plan that has
plunged the U.S. into premature and precipitous decline, and
presents a catastrophic threat to the dollar.
On April 3, before the taking of Baghdad, we wrote of the
predictable consequences of the Iraq invasion:
