New York Times on sanctions

Here is "Pravda's" view

-- This is the first report I have seen describing any reaction on the part of Iran to the SWIFT shut off last Saturday. What it says to me is that Iran is first attempting to work around the sanctions, which were clearly and obviously intended to provoke a military response and open the door for an optimistically unjustified "knockout blow". 

As I said over the weekend, if Iran is able to find a workaround that keeps it going, without rising to the bait, it will mean the end of U.S. dollar hegemony and would be the best-possible outcome for all humanity and planet Earth. It is too soon to know the outcome. But this tells me that Iran is not seeking the military confrontation the west wants, at least for now.

As Tom Petty told us so clearly, "The waiting is the hardest part." -- MCR

Strained by Sanctions, Iran Eases Money Policy

New York Times,

19 March, 2012

"Pressured by tightened Western economic sanctions and a burgeoning black market for dollars, with Iranian citizens desperate to buy them, Iran’s central bank has loosened its strict foreign exchange policy, allowing money traders there to sell dollars for rials at the unofficial market rate, rather than the artificially fixed official rate...

"Economists said the eased exchange rate restriction, which now simply requires money changers to report the rate at which they sell dollars for rials, would provide the central bank with more precise information about the domestic demand for dollars and enable it to track the disparity between the official rate and the market rate more accurately...

"Iranian leaders have denounced the sanctions and vowed to find ways to bypass their effects. The Iranians have negotiated barter deals with Russia and India to avoid spending dollars and other foreign currencies, for example.

"Reuters reported Monday that Pakistan had decided to export one million tons of wheat to Iran in a barter arrangement, possibly in exchange for Iranian iron ore."

For article GO HERE