Before 9/11, the reason Bush pursued discussions of war with Iraq at the White House, and following 9/11 with invasion of Afghanistan still fresh in our face, spoke publicly to the nation putting forth a smorgasbord of reasons for an Iraq war, requires an authentic imperative.
In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced his plan to sell oil for Euros. He began doing so and thus the U.S. dollar hegemony of oil received its first rupture since our abandonment of the gold standard in 1971. The Vietnam War was primarily responsible for depleting our enormous gold reserves. The United States then made an ironclad agreement with the OPEC nations to sell oil using the dollar as the sole medium of exchange.
Because all nations need oil, the petrodollar replaced gold as backing for our paper dollar. Thus, the dollar operated as fiat money. This means in order to purchase from the Middle East's great oil reserves, the world's countries have to use their own country's coin to buy and save dollars. There are two world dollar exchanges to facilitate these transactions: London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Both are owned by a US consortium, and operated by an Atlanta-based corporation.
Other oil producing countries are following Saddam in accepting the Euro for oil instead of the dollar. This is true more now because the purchasing power of the Euro has slowly gone up while that of the dollar has devalued starting in November 2002. America has outsourced smaller scale manufacturing to cheaper third world countries, with the exception of the military. Foreign investors started withdrawing from the American market shaky with the huge cost of two major wars still going on. Many countries have studied the conversion from the every weakening petrodollar to the gradually strengthening Eurodollar.
Thus, the invasion of Iraq has been Bush's first priority since taking office, and his administration's response to a threatened Mid-East conversion using the Euro to buy oil, starting with Iraq. War with Iraq to stave off what to appears to be an economic disaster facing the U.S. is also embraced by Democrats known as neo-liberals. It has been stated Gore would have done Iraq also. Obviously, Kerry was in that boat without question.
Now American bases established permanently in Iraq will insure oil sales in dollars. It is necessary to invade the oil producing countries rather than attempt negotiation of oil agreements, to make sure, or police, the sale of oil in dollars.
The Administration's apoplectic reactions to Iran's nuclear technology screen a greater fear than Iraq represented. Iran has planned the establishment of an Euro Bourse, which was expected to open in 2005. This oil bourse will operate as a money exchange for the world's other nations to buy Euros with their country's money.
The European Union now numbers 22 nations with the euro being their medium of exchange. The adoption of the Euro for oil transactions means Europeans will no longer have to buy and hold dollars but can use their own currency.
Venezuela has a large reserve of oil and sells it for Euros. Bush tried to set up a coup to overturn Chavez a couple of years ago which failed. He falsely claimed the election of Chavez was undemocratic as an excuse to put in a dictator who will follow America's wishes. Bush plans to go after Venezuela as soon as the current takeovers are under control.
Unlike Iraq, Iran is geographically situated so that an invasion is not nearly as feasible. A covert action against the Bourse is what has been expected would take place. Seymour Hirsch stated in The New Yorker Bush plans to bomb Iran into submission.
The growing sale of oil in Euros produces a critical situation for the United States. The only solution the Bush Administration understands is pure aggression against any nation with deep oil reserves that could threaten the replacement of the petrodollar as the medium of exchange by the petroeuro.
The degree of U.S. criticality is heightened by the drop in the strength of the dollar due to the Bush Administration's economic policies supporting multinational corporations at the expense of the American domestic economy reflected in lower paying jobs. At the same time the Bush ruling junta decreases assistance to medical and other social programs which normally help pick up the slack during stringent domestic times. The goal is elimination, not fix, of all such programs particularly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The Right has never, and does not now, believe in any assistance to individual American citizens.
Since 2001, the enormous tax cuts to Americans in the upper one percent of wealth and those just below has eroded federal revenues normally going annually to the states. And yet the states are now expected to pick up all expenses for disasters like Katrina. The ideology places this nation in the time frame that existed in 1789.
We are faced with enormous foreign debt. Bush has greatly increased the debt to pay military expenses for his present and planned wars. The purpose is world energy control, and therefore American domination of the world: the American Imperialistic policy. This has been and is more than ever the goal of the Capitol Hill Democrats, the Democratic Leadership (DLC), as well. Jimmy Carter also embraced imperialism--that's why he did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. There are many regular Democrats who don't embrace this policy, including Howard Dean. However, they must try to do their work within this context, with most American people ignorant of the dichotomy.
Many countries could pull the plug on our economy. The biggest example is China with six billion dollars in U.S. Treasury Bonds which they are saving for future use, but will gradually cash in the bonds with interest. They have handled their oil needs not by conquest, but by purchasing oil leases in various oil rich countries particularly the Middle East and Central Asia. They purchased a lease on a big oil reserve in Iran.
We have globalization now simply because the world is principally one place, and much more than many nations with little awareness of each other, as in the past. We can't go back. Trade with cooperation for world health is the way to peace and increasing the standard of living everywhere.
Loss of the petrodollar can cause an AMERICAN ECONOMIC DEPRESSION. Can we resist war and deal with the problem in a rational manner?
Should not Americans realize by now that the world manifest destiny dream of the right-wing imperialists and the neo-liberals is neither morally right with respect to the worlds nations, nor beneficial for people's individual lives in this country?