[News] Europe at war with Iran

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Europe at war with Iran
By Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA25Ak02.html

No one ever lost money betting on the foolishness of European Union 
(EU) politicos. And if you are an oil trader, rejoice - all the way 
to the bank; as expected, EU foreign ministers - meekly following the 
Barack Obama administration - have given a green light for a full 
Iranian oil embargo.

The embargo applies not only to new contracts but also existing 
contracts - to be voided by July 1, and includes extra sanctions 
targeting Iran's central bank and petrochemical exports to the EU.
It's always crucial to remember the embargo - a de facto European 
declaration of economic war - was forcefully proposed in the first 
place by the neo-Napoleonic "liberator" of Libya, France's President 
Nicolas Sarkozy. The official EU excuse for the economic war is 
"serious and deepening concerns over the Iranian nuclear program".

It didn't help that Moscow had already warned the EU to stop acting 
as mere pawns of Washington - once again shooting themselves in their 
Ferragamo-clad feet. The Russians know all there is to know about how 
this embargo may horribly backfire.

The EU defends its strategy - or economic war - as the only way to 
avert "chaos in the Middle East". Yet the economic war may end up 
sparking the full-blown war it is theoretically trying to avert; talk 
about an array of unintended consequences waiting in the wings.

And that leads us straight to the Strait of Hormuz drama. Tehran has 
repeatedly said that it would close Hormuz only if - and we should 
repeat - only if Iran is blocked from exporting its oil. This would 
represent a deathblow to the Iranian economy - totally dependent on 
oil exports - not to mention the regime controlled by Supreme Leader 
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Regime change is the real agenda of 
Washington and its European poodles (see 
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA19Ak03.html>The myth of 
'isolated Iran' Asia Times Online, January 19) - but that cannot be 
spelled out to global public opinion.

The tracks of my tears
Of the top five Iranian oil importers, four are in Asia; two BRICS 
members (China and India), plus US allies Japan and South Korea. It's 
fair to argue that all these importers would severely blame the 
Americans/Europeans for their provocations (in fact some are already 
doing that) should Iran consider blocking - or activating a series of 
mines - in the Strait of Hormuz.

The EU for its part imports around 600,000 barrels of oil a day from 
Iran; that's about 25% of Iran's daily exports of 2.6 million 
barrels. The top EU importer is Italy. Other key importers are Spain 
and Greece. All these Club Med countries, to put it mildly, are 
currently mired in deep economic mess.

The EU insists on spinning its so-called "dual track" approach 
towards Iran. Stripped of spin, dual track essentially translates in 
practice as "shut up, bow to our sanctions, stop enriching uranium 
and sit on the table to negotiate on our terms".

So when the EU's foreign policy head - the stupendously innocuous 
Catherine Ashton - spins about the "validity of the dual track 
approach", serious diplomats across the developing world can only 
interpret it for what it is; a joke. That's not exactly an incentive 
for Iran to renew nuclear negotiations with the "Iran Six" group 
(permanent United Nations Security Council members the US, Britain, 
France, Russia, China, plus Germany).

Meanwhile, the Lord of the European poodles - the Obama 
administration - is applying all sorts of pressure over Asian powers 
to stop buying Iranian oil. Fat chance. For all of them - including 
Japan and South Korea - it will remain business as usual; they need 
Iran's oil even more than the West.

Even BP - the sterling polluter of the Gulf of Mexico - has asked the 
Obama administration for an exemption from sanctions. It all has to 
do with a key Pipelineistan chapter - the development of the immense 
Shah Deniz II gas field in Azerbaijan.

There's no way Europe can benefit from Caspian Sea gas without a 
massive $22 billion investment to develop Shah Deniz II - of which 
Iran holds a 10% participation. Shah Deniz II would be essential to 
supply the Nabucco pipeline - if it ever gets built. Nabucco bypasses 
Iran's strategic ally Russia - which happens to maintain a 
stranglehold over Europe's gas supply, as Europeans themselves never 
cease to complain in Brussels.

If Iran blocks it, the deal dies. So we have a post-surrealist 
situation of Britain's Big Oil - via BP - imploring for the US to 
exempt it from sanctions, otherwise European energy security will be 
at risk. Britain also happens to be an implacable foe of Tehran's 
regime, but still relies on Iran to "save" Europe from the claws of 
Gazprom. You can't make this stuff up.

The City never sleeps
The name of the game in Iran will always be regime change because the 
perennial wet dream of Washington and the European poodles is to grab 
Iran's fabulous oil (12.7% of global reserves) and gas wealth. And 
the fact is that wealth is increasingly profiting the Asian Energy 
Security Grid - and not the West.

The huge North and South Azadegan fields - 26 billion barrels - are 
being exploited by - who else - China; China National Petroleum 
Corporation is developing both, investing $8.4 billion over the next 
10 years. As for the Yadavaran field, it is being developed by the 
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation; in four years, it will be 
producing almost 200,000 barrels a day. And all this without even 
mentioning the largest gas field in the world - South Pars, of which 
Iran holds a great portion, alongside Qatar.

And then there's the crucial petrodollar front. Dominique 
Strauss-Kahn (DSK), slightly before he was forced to resign as the 
International Monetary Fund's director general over a sex scandal, 
was insisting on the end of the US dollar as the world's reserve 
currency, proposing instead the IMF's special drawing rights - the 
IMF's virtual currency including the US dollar, euro, pound, yen and yuan.

Well, it's already happening, via other means. Memo to an asleep at 
the wheel Washington/Brussels axis; China and India are already 
bypassing US/EU sanctions on Iran.

Three BRICS members (Russia, India and China), plus Japan and Iran - 
a mighty mix of the world's largest producers and consumers of energy 
- are already trading, or about to trade, in their own currencies. 
Russia and Iran have just started trading in rials and roubles. All 
of these powers have bilateral agreements - inexorably surging to 
multilateral; and that translates as the US dollar slowly fading as 
the global reserve currency, with all the seismic consequences this implies.

It's as if a stunned world was watching a ritual seppuku in slow 
motion committed by the Washington-dominated West.

There is also the auspicious orange in this Year of the Dragon pie - 
the upcoming foreign exchange bourse trading in yuan in the City of 
London. Beijing wants it - and the City badly wants it. Tehran 
already sells oil to Beijing in yuan. Think of Iran using the City 
foreign exchange to use their yuan and thus keep access to all global 
markets - no matter the US/EU sanctions/embargo avalanche.

Obviously, City players are aware that a "free trade" yuan bourse in 
London may play to Iran's advantage; but unlike those morons in 
Brussels, at least City slickers are aware that business is business.

Pepe Escobar is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim>Globalistan: 
How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 
2007) and 
<http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898>Red 
Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, 
just out, is 
<http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1>Obama 
does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia at yahoo.com.





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