Annexing Khuzestan; battle-plans for Iran

By Mike Whitney

02/01/06 "ICH" -- -- In less than 24 hours the Bush administration has won impressive victories on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. At home, the far-right Federalist Society alum, Sam Alito, has overcome the feeble resistance from Democratic senators; ensuring his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Equally astonishing, the administration has coerced both Russia and China into bringing Iran before the United Nations Security Council although (as Mohamed ElBaradei says) “There’s no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.” The surprising capitulation of Russia and China has forced Iran to abandon its efforts for further negotiations; cutting off dialogue that might diffuse the volatile situation.

“We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy,” Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told state television.

The administration’s success with Iran ends the diplomatic charade and paves the way for war. Now, UN Ambassador John Bolton will appear before the Security Council making spurious allegations of “noncompliance” that will rattle through the corporate media and prepare the world for unilateral military action.

The administration has no hope of securing the votes needed for sanctions or punitive action. The trip to the Security Council is purely a ploy to provide the cover of international legitimacy to another act of unprovoked aggression. The case has gone as far as it will go excluding the requisite “touched up” satellite photos and bogus allegations of unreliable dissidents.

We should now be focused on how Washington intends to carry out its war plans, since war appears to be inevitable.

Those who doubt that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team will attack Iran, while so conspicuously overextended in Iraq, are ignoring the subtleties of the administration’s Middle East strategy.

Bush has no intention of occupying Iran. Rather, the goal is to destroy major weapons-sites, destabilize the regime, and occupy a sliver of land on the Iraqi border that contains 90% of Iran’s oil wealth. Ultimately, Washington will aim to replace the Mullahs with American-friendly clients who can police their own people and fabricate the appearance of representative government. But, that will have to wait. For now, the administration must prevent the incipient Iran bourse (oil-exchange) from opening in March and precipitating a global sell-off of the debt-ridden dollar. There have many fine articles written about the proposed “euro-based” bourse and the devastating effects it will have on the greenback. The best of these are “Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar” by William R. Clark, and “The Proposed Oil Bourse” by Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.

The bottom line on the bourse is this; the dollar is underwritten by a national debt that now exceeds $8 trillion dollars and trade deficits that surpass $600 billion per year. That means that the greenback is the greatest swindle in the history of mankind. It’s utterly worthless. The only thing that keeps the dollar afloat is that oil is traded exclusively in greenbacks rather than some other currency. If Iran is able to smash that monopoly by trading in petro-euros then the world’s central banks will dump the greenback overnight, sending markets crashing and the US economy into a downward spiral.

The Bush administration has no intention of allowing that to take place. In fact, as the tax-cuts and the budget deficits indicate, the Bush cabal fully intends to perpetuate the system that trades worthless dollars for valuable commodities, labor, and resources. As long as the oil market is married to the dollar, this system of global indentured servitude will continue.

Battle Plans

The Bush administration’s attention has shifted to a small province in southwestern Iran that is unknown to most Americans. Never the less, Khuzestan will become the next front in the war on terror and the lynchpin for prevailing in the global resource war. If the Bush administration can sweep into the region (under the pretext disarming Iran’s nuclear weapons programs) and put Iran’s prodigious oil wealth under US control, the dream of monopolizing Middle East oil will have been achieved.

Not surprisingly, this was Saddam Hussein’s strategy in 1980 when he initiated hostilities against Iran in a war that would last for eight years. Saddam was an American client at the time, so it is likely that he got the green-light for the invasion from the Reagan White House. Many of Reagan’s high-ranking officials currently serve in the Bush administration; notably Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Khuzestan represents 90% of Iran’s oil production. The control over these massive fields will force the oil-dependent nations of China, Japan and India to continue to stockpile greenbacks despite the currency’s dubious value. The annexing of Khuzestan will prevent Iran’s bourse from opening, thereby guaranteeing that the dollar will maintain its dominant position as the world’s reserve currency. As long as the dollar reigns supreme and western elites have their hands on the Middle East oil-spigot, the current system of exploitation through debt will continue into perpetuity. The administration can confidently prolong its colossal deficits without fear of a plummeting dollar. (In fact, the American war-machine and all its various appendages, from Guantanamo to Abrams Tanks, are paid for by the myriad nations who willingly hold reserves of American currency)

This extortion-scheme is typically referred to as the global economic system. In reality, it has nothing to do with either free markets or capitalism. That is just philosophical mumbo-jumbo. This is the dollar-system; predicated entirely on the ongoing monopoly of the oil trade in dollars.

Invading Khuzestan

In a recent article by Zolton Grossman, “Khuzestan; the First Front in the War on Iran?”, Grossman cites the Beirut Daily Star which predicts that the “"first step taken by an invading force would be to occupy Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military's oil supply, forcing it to depend on its limited stocks."

This strategy has been called the “Khuzestan Gambit”, and we can expect that some variant of this plan will be executed following the aerial bombardment of Iranian military installations and weapons sites. If Iran retaliates, then there is every reason to believe that either the United States or Israel will respond with low-yield, bunker-busting nuclear weapons. In fact, the Pentagon may want to demonstrate its eagerness to use nuclear weapons do deter future adversaries and to maintain current levels of troop deployments without a draft.

Tonkin Bay Redux

On January 28, 2006, Iranian officials announced that they would “hand over evidence that proved British involvement in bombings in the southern city of Ahvaz earlier in the week” that killed eight civilians and wounded 46 others. This was just one of the many bombings, incitements, and demonstrations that have taken place in Khuzestan in the last year that suggest foreign intervention. The action is strikingly similar to the 2 British commandoes who were apprehended in Basra a few months ago dressed as Arabs with a truckload of explosives during the week of religious festival.

Coincidence?

Perhaps.

But, step by step, Iran is being set up for war. What difference does the provocation make? The determination to consolidate the oil reserves in the Caspian Basin was made more than a decade ago and is clearly articulated in the policy papers produced by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) The Bush administration is one small province away from realizing the its dream of controlling the world’s most valued resource. They won’t let that opportunity pass them by.

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source: Information Clearing House

The Guerilla War on Iraqi Oil

“Iraqi oil…will be a legitimate and a permanent target of the armed resistance plans to liberate Iraq and defeat the invaders...

The armed resistance will use every possible means militarily and technically to prevent the occupier from stealing Iraq’s oil and use its revenues with anyone, under any circumstances, on the national and international levels...

On this basis, every one who collaborates with the occupier, such as employees, merchants, middlemen, whether Iraqis, Arabs or non-Arabs will be watched and targeted without any hesitation.” -- Baath Arab Socialist Party Communiqué, Iraq, May 13, 2004

By Mike Whitney

01/03/05 "ICH" -- -- A war is raging in Iraq that will determine the outcome of the present occupation as well as the shape of future conflicts. It is the war for control of Iraqi oil.

Currently, America is losing the conflict in stunning fashion with little hope for change in the near future. This week the Iraqi Oil Ministry announced that oil production “has reached a post-war low” and that the “exports of crude, which had run at an average of about 1.6 million barrels per day since the end of the 2003 war, dropped to 1.2 mbpd in November and 1.1 mbpd in December.” (Al Jazeera, January 2, 2006) All the indicators point to continuing difficulty with production due to the escalating violence.

At times, the export of oil has been completely cut off in both the northern and southern regions making it impossible to benefit from Iraq’s prodigious natural wealth. The Iraqi resistance has grown increasingly skillful in sabotaging pipelines and facilities despite the extraordinary efforts to protect them from attack.

This is truly the face of 21st century warfare: disparate cells of armed guerillas disrupting critical energy supplies that sustain the global economy.

Currently, the resource war is concealed behind a propaganda smokescreen created by the establishment media. Their task is to characterize the conflict as a war on terror and to limit their coverage to the random incidents of violence by fanatical jihadis. It’s rare when the media reports on the guerilla war that has subsumed Iraq and which threatens a worldwide economic downturn.

There’s simply no way that the Bush administration can prevail in its original intention of controlling Iraq’s oil if a small army of guerillas focus their energies on disrupting production. Millions of dollars of infrastructure can be destroyed in a flash by one determined fighter with a bomb or a Kalashnikov.

The success of the armed resistance is quantifiable in terms of the reduction in oil exports. In 1990, Saddam was exporting 3.5 million barrels per day. During the 1990s, there was a gradual decline due to sanctions and neglect. Since the invasion of 2003, the oil sector has taken a nosedive directly attributable to the blowing up of pipelines. Production is now at an all time low, less than half of what it was just prior to the invasion. The development of oil fields and the transport of petroleum are proving to be incompatible with the unpredictable outbursts of violence.

Oil Production: “Heading Backwards”

“The general integrity of Iraqi infrastructure appears to us to be heading backwards rather than forwards,” London-based Barclay’s Capital said in a report issued last month. (Jim Crane, Associated Press)

Gone are the optimistic predictions, like those of Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney, who expected that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction with its lavish oil revenues. Instead, what we see is the chilling rictus of new type of warfare that is likely to sweep across the region swallowing up vital resources in columns of black smoke.

The attacks on facilities have discouraged foreign investors from committing to long-term investment or development. Many of the major players remain skeptical that the US-led occupation will be able to stabilize the situation in the near future. Industry analysts expect little change in the overall security situation in 2006.

Additionally, the IMF has demanded that the Oil Ministry remove price supports for the highly subsidized Iraqi domestic supplies. This has only increased the public’s outrage with the ongoing occupation. The IMF authorized a loan of $685 million to Iraq in December with the predictable “vice-like” provisions that require Iraq to follow its structural adjustment programs. In effect, these provisions put Iraqi resources under the direct control of transnational corporations who can then decide the terms under which those resources are sold.

The growing opposition to the occupation and the increasingly adept Iraqi resistance provide the foundation for a long and costly conflict. Iraq is the first clear example of asymmetrical warfare in the new century: small groups of rebels that target crucial energy supplies, wreaking havoc and crippling industry.

As America continues to tighten its grip on the world’s dwindling hydrocarbon resources, we can expect that the successes of the Iraqi resistance will offer a model to the other disparate groups who have no chance of beating the United States in open battle, but hope to bring the empire to its knees by making the costs of war too great to sustain.

Mike Whitney - fergiewhitney@msn.com

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source: Information Clearing House

Nuclear Iran? You bet!

By Mike Whitney

12/05/05 "ICH" -- -- Is there a case to be made for allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons in the interests of peace? Or has all the air been sucked out of the debate by American and Israeli demagogues who dominate the airwaves?

The case for a nuclear Iran doesn’t emerge from fear-mongering or saber-rattling, like the alternate view, but from reason and respect for widely accepted facts; both of which are sadly missing from the analysis appearing in the western media. Any reasonable person can compile the evidence, weigh the facts, and draw the very same conclusions as myself. Regrettably, they will have to swim against a torrent of misinformation broadcast daily by an entire industry devoted exclusively to deception and propaganda.

The problems in the Middle East are clear and indisputable despite 30 years of obfuscation designed to promote the continued occupation of Palestine. Just this week, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on 6 separate items which reinforced resolutions 242 and the 1967 borders of the Palestinian state.

Predictably, Israel and the US voted in the minority obstructing the application of international law and sticking with decades of willful “rejectionist” policies. John Bolton, the US “mad-hatter” who now presides over Israel’s interests in the UN, ludicrously called the balloting “irrelevant” because it fell short of the expansionistic ambitions of Israel and jeopardized the further colonization of the region by the US.

No one expected anything different.

Never the less, the media smokescreen has not obscured the brutal realities of life under occupation nor has it concealed where the blame ultimately lies. The language of state-terror,; carefully crafted in Israeli think-tanks (“the generous offer”, “partner in peace”, “infrastructure of terrorism” and “targeted assassinations”) has done little to disguise 30 years of imperial politics supported by a rotating list of toadies operating from the Oval Office.

Do we agree, so far?

Now, Washington has joined the Middle East tussle, flaunting its public relations campaign; “The War on Terror”, to justify another century of exploitation, resource-theft, and jack-boot subjugation of the native people.

So, how does this relate to Iran?

Clearly, if things had gone smoothly in Iraq, Dick Cheney would be unfurling the Stars and Stripes in Tehran right now. No serious critic of the Bush administration’s Defense Policy Strategy for preemptive warfare would dispute this.

No one.

So, how does one discourage American and Israeli aggression and occupation?

Both Bush and Sharon have made it painfully clear that nothing short of nuclear weapons will stop their regional ambitions. The war on terror is just a smokescreen intended to mask the real goals of disarming the world and seizing its resources.

So, how bad would it be to put nukes in the hands of the Mullahs?

Well, first of all we need to establish whether or not Iran has a history of territorial aggression.

Have the Ayatollahs followed a policy of ignoring the UN for 30 years while they occupy an area that (according to the vast majority of sovereign countries) belongs to the indigenous people?

No.

Do the Mullahs have a record of preemptive war on 6 continents, massive, regionally-destabilizing covert activities, coup d’etats, and an archipelago of concentration camps spread across the globe?

No.

Has Iran done anything that would indicate that it would use a nuclear weapon against a civilian population like the United States did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

No.

The real issue with Iran is that its leaders have shown the temerity to control their own resources, which the corporate globalists and Washington plutocrats claim as their own.

Isn’t that true?

So, if we are serious about peace in the region, and do not want to see Iran degenerate into the dark-winter of American genocide that we see in Iraq; it should be provided with the weaponry to defend itself from foreign aggression.

After all, the policy of “Deterrents” worked for the US and Soviet Union for nearly 40 years, preventing the probability of nuclear holocaust.

Perhaps, it will work again.

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source: Information Clearing House