Friday 13 January 2012

Russia is to be to blame for war




Did Russia fire the first shot in the pending war with Iran?
When it comes to the current confrontation between Iran and the West, all the cliches seem to apply – the dogs of war are  barking, the drums of war are beating and, of course, the Russians want their cake and to eat it too.
10 January, 2011

After years of supplying Iran with technology to develop nuclear weapons, the Russians are now expressing “regret and worry” that Tehran intend to open an underground uranium enrichment facility and continue to ignore international concern about its nuclear program.

We hope that Tehran will listen to our opinion about the need for a further close cooperation with the (International Atomic Energy Agency) and a quick start of serious six-way talks on the Iranian nuclear program without any preconditions,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, adding that Russia stood ready to help negotiate a peaceful end to the situation.

That’s rich. Russia built Iran’s first nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushedr, and announced in November that it would supply others.

But even as the Putin regime indulged in peace-making rhetoric, it was sending Russian warships into the Mediterranean, including the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and two escort ships after they’d concluded a week-long visit to the Syrian port of Tartas, which, no surprise, Bashar Al-Assad’s regime interpreted as sign of support for its efforts to crush those rebelling against the dictatorship.

And now comes word that the Russians are helping the Iranians take some of the sting out of U.S.-led economic sanctions imposed on the Persian Gulf state by making it possible for Iran to receive payment for its oil exports in Russian rubles.

The Iranian rial has lost 20 per cent of its value against the dollar in the past week, jacking up the cost of living for Iran’s 74 million people – the last thing Iran’s theocratic rulers want given the country’s already weak economy. Iranians have reportedly been scrambling to protect their meager savings by converting them into dollars.

Tehran has responded to the threat of sanctions with threats to close the Straits of Hormuz to international shipping, which, if effective, would cut a major oil shipping route and send shockwaves through the world’s already fragile economy. The U.S. has vowed not to allow this to happen. Small wonder, then, that the drums of war beat louder and louder.

Iran and Russia have apparently agreed to replace the U.S. dollar with their national currencies, the rial and the ruble respectively, in conducting bilateral trade, according to Bloomberg News, quoting Iran’s state-run Fars news agency, which cites as its source the Iranian ambassador in Moscow, Seved Reza Sajjadi.

What this suggests, of course, is that the Iranians — with the help of the Russians — have found a way to at least partially avoid some of the harsh impact of American sanctions on their economy.

But unlike a similar move undertaken by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2000 to escape having to use the U.S. dollar as payment for Iraqi oil, Iran’s new arrangement to get around the sanctions was apparently recommended by the Russians.

The proposal to switch to the ruble and the Iranian rial was raised by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Astana, Kazakhstan, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ambassador said,” according to Bloomberg.

Most of the world’s oil sales are denominated in American dollars. And because so many nations rely on oil imports, including China, India and Japan, these countries generally keep large supplies of dollars on hand to effect those imports. According to some analysts’ speculations, this ongoing requirement for dollars helps maintain the value of the dollar, which, in turn, allows the American government to gain the revenues needed to keep issuing low-interest bonds and, thereby, continue running excessively high budget deficits.

If Iranian-Russian move to abandon the U.S. dollar prompted other oil-importing countries – China, India, Japan? – to do the same, the American economy could be badly hurt.

And that, obviously, would tick off the Obama administration, especially in an election year. Indeed, according to Dennis Ross, who served two years on Obama’s National Security Council and a year as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s special adviser on Iran, Obama is quite prepared to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon if sanctions and diplomacy fail.

Obama has “made it very clear” that he regards a nuclear- armed Iran as so great a threat to international security that “the Iranians should never think that there’s a reluctance to use the force” to stop them.

There are consequences if you act militarily, and there are big consequences if you don’t act,” Ross said, adding that the administration considers the risks of permitting a nuclear-armed Iran to be greater than the risks of military action.

Considering Russia’s activities in all of this, might it be said that Russians have fired a shot that will be heard around the world.

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