Ok let's take a look at the Obama administration Plan for Iran, Yes Virginia and the other 49 states we really do have a plan. For the purposes of this article I'm leaving out the basic notions
1) There are no Iranian plans for a Bomb and the whole notion of capability.
2) There really are no sane viable military options regarding Iran.
The Current plan for Iran.
1) Destroy the Iranian Economy
2) Generals don't get paid for six months
3) Ayatollahs get their brains blown out;see Kadaffy Duck; by either the Generals
who haven't been paid for six months or an angry mob
because the Generals are sitting home because they haven't been paid
for six months
For this essay I will discuss step 1
Destroying the Iranian Economy.
Destroying a healthy economy the size of some 78 million takes a considerable
amount of effort. Having passed Economics 101 to have an economy on the
world stage you need the ability for people to pay you and you to get paid
and people to buy your stuff and sell you stuff.
1) Ability to get paid and to pay people.
Ok to move money around the planet an organization called S.W.I.F.T was created
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) provides a network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardised and reliable environment. SWIFT also markets software and services to financial institutions, much of it for use on the SWIFTNet Network, and ISO 9362 bank identifier codes (BICs) are popularly known as "SWIFT codes".
The chairman of SWIFT is Yawar Shah, who was born and raised in Pakistan, and the CEO is Gottfried Leibbrandt, who is from the Netherlands.
The majority of international interbank messages use the SWIFT network. As of September 2010, SWIFT linked more than 9,000 financial institutions in 209 countries and territories, who were exchanging an average of over 15 million messages per day (compared to an average of 2.4 million daily messages in 1995).[1] SWIFT transports financial messages in a highly secure way but does not hold accounts for its members and does not perform any form of clearing or settlement.
SWIFT does not facilitate funds transfer; rather, it sends payment orders, which must be settled by correspondent accounts that the institutions have with each other. Each financial institution, to exchange banking transactions, must have a banking relationship by either being a bank or affiliating itself with one (or more) so as to enjoy those particular business features.
SWIFT is a cooperative society under Belgian law and it is owned by its member financial institutions. It has offices around the world. SWIFT headquarters, designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura are in La Hulpe, Belgium, near Brussels.
Ok for all practical purposes the world community has "pulled the plug" for Iran's banks to use SWIFT.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
SWIFT Cuts Off Iran As Sanctions Vice Tightens
BRUSSELS — Dozens of Iranian banks were blocked from doing business with much of the world as the West tightens the financial screws on a country it wants to prevent from developing nuclear weapons.
The Belgium-based company that facilitates most international bank transfers on Thursday took the unprecedented step of blocking 30 Iranian banks from using its service. The move is likely to hurt Iran's all-important oil industry and make it difficult for citizens to receive money from relatives living abroad.
The move by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is part of a broader effort by Western nations to isolate Iran financially and force it to demonstrate that it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but officials in many other countries believe otherwise.
SWIFT said it was forced by recent European Union sanctions to discontinue service to the Iranian banks beginning Saturday. SWIFT is a secure private network used by nearly every bank around the world to send payment messages that lead to the transfer of money across international borders.
Now money is still leaking in and out of Iran, but Chill
http://www.reuters.com/...
Obama tightens sanctions on banks helping Iran sell oil
By Laura MacInnis and Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama announced new U.S. sanctions on Tuesday against foreign banks that help Iran sell its oil and said the measure would add pressure on Tehran for failing to meet its international nuclear obligations.
Obama's decision came ahead of congressional votes on new sanctions intended to further strip Iran of its oil-related revenues, and drew swift condemnation from China, home to one of the targeted banks and a major buyer of Iranian oil.
The sanctions followed criticism from Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney that the White House is failing to act strongly enough to stop Iran's suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The United States remains committed to finding a diplomatic resolution to the standoff with Tehran, but is also determined to step up the pressure, Obama said in a statement accompanying his executive order authorising the sanctions.
At some point in the next few months the only way Iran is going to be able to move money is with the cliched Suitcase full of cash leading to the Steamer Trunk and the Pallet of Cash. From what I remember of Econ 101 you can't run a modern economy on sneakernet shlepping cash around. Iraq tried it for a while before the UN sanctions on Iraq were lifted and pallets of money went missing.
So far inflation in Iran is estimated to be some 25% annual as of July 1
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Already Plagued by Inflation, Iran Is Bracing for Worse
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The imposition on Sunday of new international measures aimed at cutting Iran’s oil exports, its main source of income, threatens to make the distortion in the economy even worse.
With the local currency, the rial, having lost 50 percent of its value in the last year against other currencies, consumer prices here are rising fast — officially by 25 percent annually, but even more than that, economists say.
2) People willing to sell you stuff and buy stuff from you.
Russia and China who have enough of their own internal problems and one is left to wonder how long they can afford to prop up the Iranian economy.
As for the rest of the planet who is going to want to do business with Iran if you can't be sure you're going to be paid?
Now since outside of Russia and China there's a certain consensus of Iran Bomb Bad that people are wherever humanly possible not do business with Iran
So that's the plan from the outside looking in
1) Cut off the ability to move money
2) Don't buy or sell stuff to these folks.
As I said it takes a while to destroy an economy.
Thoughts anyone?