ratboy's anvil

Other Reasons for Regime Change

In November 2000, Iraq began selling oil for euros rather than dollars. Besides being a good symbolic way to thumb its nose at America, it was also a departure from the long run the US dollar has had over the last half century as the standard for international trade and actually has proved beneficial for Iraq. As of today (April 8) 1 euro is worth $1.07 US.

Iran has also converted its central bank reserve funds to the euro and has hinted at adopting the euro for all oil sales. North Korea has followed suit and officially adopted the euro on Dec 7, 2002.

Venezuela is a fairly large oil producer and is reportedly considering joining what is evolving into a trend, since even OPEC itself expressed a similar interest at its 2002 meeting last April in Spain. This has to be a scary proposition for the US oil interest boys. In a fairly short period of time the US would have to dip into its central reserves to buy euros to buy its oil. On the scale of Opec sales alone the costs of conversion could cause serious damage to the US economy.

Now consider that in 2004 there will be 10 more countries added to the E.U. and at that stage the European Union's combined markets will represent a collective consumer market that is a third larger than the US. Which means they will pressure OPEC to convert to the euro as the standard; especially since they will be buying more than half the total oil sales.

Its hard for me to believe that the US would take kindly to or remain tacit about such a turn of events. Its far more likely they would take some sort preemptive action to keep that from happening...after all, its money, honey and nothing gets American's dander up like money; much more of a national religion than Christianity could ever hope to be...why they might even resort to violence...again.

"Oops! Better reach for the guns and teach some Arabs some lessons about screwing around with the value of the greenback, Billy! Now lets see, who can we whack and teach everybody else a a lesson? Hmmm...hey, that Saddam guy, he's ripe for a whoopin'...shudda taken out way back when anyhow when he stopped being useful."

Ok that's a cartoon...but the point is real. Think about it. The US installing their own regime in Baghdad via a violent overthrow of Saddam will guarentee that Iraq forsakes the euro and returns to the greenback. It also serves a shot across the bow to any other states in the neigborhood and to OPEC itself that changing to the euro is maybe not such a great idea if they don't want to see their names added to the axis of evil list.

The plus component of controlling Iraq's oil is that the US can also undercut the power of OPEC simply by having Iraq produce way over quota and drive the world price down.

Wow... I guess it IS a war of liberation...for the oil and monied people anyway....and of course for the American "way of life" averting its comeuppance. But I'm sure that BushCo didn't consider any of that figured into why Iraq should be liberated. I'm sure he was really more concerned with the welfare of the Iraqi people and all those weapons of mass destruction that no one can seem to locate.