empire and the petrodollar

Iran poses a far more serious threat to the U.S. than its disputed nuclear aspirations. Over the last few years, Iran has unleashed a weapon of mass destruction of a very different kind, one that directly challenges a key underpinning of American hegemony: the U.S. dollar as the exclusive global currency for all oil transactions. 

Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also got the Saudis to agree to invest their mega oil profits in the U.S. economy. In addition to buying interest bearing U.S. government securities, the Saudis also invested in New York banks. Because the OPEC oil embargo had quadrupled global oil prices, the Saudis and other Arab producers suddenly had a great deal of money to invest. The money parked in those New York banks then became available to be loaned to the rest of the world, which faced major financial crises due to—yes, you guessed it—the sudden quadrupling of oil prices.

Like Iraq pre-invasion, Iran is not a member of the WTO, has not had any dealings with the IMF since 1984, and does not have any debt with it or the World Bank. Like Iraq before it, and evidenced by China's oil development contracts, the U.S. and its oil companies are cut out of any future oil development in Iran. Like a post-sanctions Iraq, Iran has the potential to be the dominant power in the region and to provide development assistance on a vastly different model to that imposed by the WTO, World Bank and IMF, against which so much of the Middle East is rebelling. 

http://www.zcommunications.org/iran-and-the-petrodollar-threat-to-u-s-empire-by-christopher-doran