Rice: Iran a Menace Beyond Nuclear Issue

[Eugene]

Rice: Iran a Menace Beyond Nuclear Issue


Wednesday March 29, 2006 5:01 AM

AP Photo WCAP105

By ANNE GEARAN

AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that Iran was a menace
for reasons other than its alleged drive to build a nuclear bomb and that the U.S. and
its allies have "a number of tools" if Tehran does not change its ways.

"I think there's no doubt that Iran is the single biggest threat from a state that we face,"
Rice told a Senate panel.

<snip>

"We need now to broaden that thinking and that coalition, not just to what Iran is doing
on the nuclear side but also what they're doing on terrorism," Rice said. "Those are some
of the discussions that I have with these same states."

She repeated claims that Iran is meddling in Iraq, bankrolling terrorism in Lebanon and
the Palestinian territories and repressing its people.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5718064,00.html

[johncoby2]

1. yea.yea. right. Sure. whatever you say Condi.

[saigon68]

15. She opens her "UGLY PIEHOLE" again

[MadisonProgressive]

2. WMD - check!... Terrorism - check!... Let's GITERDUN!!

[bemildred]

3. We don't need to do squat. nt

[IntiRaymi]

4. Start cooking up the EXCUSES!!!!!!

Any wagers on what the reason will be this time?

[Theduckno2]

14. The Iranians were responsible for shooting J.R. Ewing.

They are the ones secretly supplying baseball players with steriods and they got Bert Parks let go from the Miss America pageant.

Seriously though, I will know that reality no longer matters to Condi when she hints at working relationship between Iran and al Qaeda.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Ah here we go with the excuse barrage.

The case for war will once again be constructed of many lines of bullshit. The individual lines will be blurred and cross connected. Fuzzy deniable statements will abound. 'Terrorism' that ill defined word with which we are at war, will morph its meaning to include things we dislike that the Iranian government does. Can connections to al qaeda be far behind? Will our Iraqi troubles be badness caused by Iranian terra?

[tatertop]

6. There are still many who do not believe this war is coming

I find that very sad

[dweller]

7. 'Iranian Oil Bourse'

just sayin'

dp

[NYC]

8. Did it start yet?

It was scheduled for about now.

[reprobate]

12. I think I heard March 15. But our media hasn't said a word about it.

[dweller]

13. not on the MSMCON radar

therefores, does not exist.

:shrug:


dp

[NYC]

35. Even if it didn't start yet, there should have been

a big headline about how it was postponed or cancelled. This is very important information.

[auagroach]

20. Excellent Question

Wasn't it strange we heard all this ominous chatter about this deadly threat to the almighty $ than poof nothing happened. Well as a dedicated observer of the demise of the American Empire I can only cite Jim Willie's remark that went something like the mullahs basically chickened out. That's the best I can figure out. Willie claimed his contacts in the City told him a week before the projected date, somewhere around the 22nd or so that the mullahs in Tehran are as fat and corrupted as all get out and don't want their little honeypot upturned. When you see them prancing around in their floor length flowing gowns and pillboxturbans it's not to hard to believe. I can only speculate that if the Iranian oil bourse should ever take flight it will be when hard line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets control of the oil ministry. If I recall correctly he has had two nominees rejected by their parliment. To be continued. Stay tuned!

[NYC]

34. Thanks. I thought around March 23rd was

the date. Thanks for all you told me.

[chrisfloyd]

18. The real scoop on the Iranian Bourse

Those who believe that Teheran Oil Bourse would be the casus belli, the hair trigger that will push Washington into a war with Iran are simply wrong. The claim that by openly trading oil to other nations or buyers in Euro, Iran would set into motion a chain of events in which oil will no longer be traded in US dollars but in Euros which would lead to a panic selling of dollars on world foreign exchange markets and a collapse of the role of the dollar as reserve currency is fantasy.

Reality is a little different.

...Despite repeated reports over the past 18 months or so that the planned bourse would finally open for business on March 20, 2006 -- and go head to head with the New York Mercantile Exchange and the ICE Futures Exchange in London -- the start date has been postponed by at least several months and maybe more than a year.

"In the middle of 2006, we are able to start the bourse," Mohammad Asemipur, special adviser on the project to Iran's Oil Minister, said when reached in Tehran. The plan is to trade petrochemical products first, with a crude oil contract coming last, a rollout that likely will take three years, he said.

"Oh, crikey, it's at a much earlier stage than people would think," said British consultant Chris Cook, who claims credit for coming up with the idea for the exchange in the first place and is a member of the consortium headed by the Tehran Stock Exchange that is charged with bringing the project to life.

"You can rest assured, there will not be a crude oil contract, Gulf-based, in my opinion, within a year -- and that would be really pushing it," Mr. Cook, a former director of ICE's predecessor, the International Petroleum Exchange, said when reached in Scotland.

SNIP

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_14125.shtml

Chris Cook is a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange in London and chief advisor the Iranian government on the Iranian Bourse.

If fact, Cook was the one who suggested the bourse to the Iranians. As well as the Norwegians who are talking about opening an euro oil bourse in Oslo after extensive meetings with Cook.

"...It is therefore with wry amusement that I have seen a myth being widely propagated on the Internet that the genesis of this "Iran Bourse" project is a wish to subvert the dollar by denominating oil pricing in Euro's."

"As anyone familiar with OPEC will know, the denomination of oil sales in currencies other than the dollar is not a new subject, and as anyone familiar with Economics will tell you the denomination of oil sales is merely a transactional issue: what matters is in what assets (or, in the case of the US, liabilities ) these proceeds are then invested." wrote Chris Cook.

More from the European Tribune Blog where Chris Cook made an appearance.

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/2/24/7575/84230

...I wrote to the then Governor of the Iranian Central Bank Dr Nourbakhsh.

In this letter I pointed out that the structure of global oil markets massively favours intermediary traders and particularly investment banks and that both consumers and producers such as Iran are adversely affected by this.

I recommended that Iran consider as a matter of urgency the creation of a Middle Eastern Energy exchange, and particularly a new Gulf benchmark oil price.

It is therefore with wry amusement that I have seen a myth being widely propagated on the Internet that the genesis of this "Iran Bourse" project is a wish to subvert the dollar by denominating oil pricing in Euro's.

As anyone familiar with OPEC will know, the denomination of oil sales in currencies other than the dollar is not a new subject, and as anyone familiar with Economics will tell you the denomination of oil sales is merely a transactional issue: what matters is in what assets (or, in the case of the US, liabilities ) these proceeds are then invested.

After a couple of years of apparent inaction my colleague and I were invited to put together a consortium to tender for a project to create such an exchange and after a presentation at the Central Bank in Tehran in May 2004, we were successful, as reported in the Guardian at the time. We subsequently learned that the delay had been due to initial opposition from the Saudi's and this opposition was withdrawn post 9/11 and Iraq.

President Ahmadi-Nejad is on record as saying that he favours transparency in the Iranian oil market. As anyone familiar with the City and Wall Street will know, transparency is the enemy of private profit, and it is this factor which was behind the delays in developing the Bourse project.

However, we remain hopeful that the strategy we recommended, which is based upon:
(a) gradual and organic introduction of pricing built upon the neutral function of transaction registration; and
(b) a simple (and Islamically sound) partnership-based "Clearing Union" synthesis of bilateral trading and a multilateral guarantee;

will in due course be taken forward.

One of the most interesting aspects of the process was that during our brief spell of contacts with decision-makers, some insight into current Iranian policy was possible - in particular, the nuclear question. In our conversations we were left in no doubt that it suits both the US and Iran for the issue to be seen to be that of the Iranian "threat" from nuclear weapons.

In fact the issue is a proxy for Iraq: try looking in the media prior to the events in Fallujah, Iraq, for anything more than desultory mention of this "issue".

But once factions in Iran funded Muqtada al-Sadr to the tune of $50 million and the US body count started to rise, then the issue began to attain its current level of importance.

Now that pro-Iranian Shi'ite elements are taking a primary role in the emerging government in Iraq, we see the nuclear temperature rising further.

The realpolitik is of course that those in power in the US and Iran have the reason they give - and the real reason - for what they do: and for the US, the real reason is and has been for many years energy security above any other consideration.

http://www.opencapital.net/articles.htm

There appear to be a few misconceptions re the Iran Oil Bourse.

Firstly, the reason for its genesis was nothing to do with what currency oil is traded in and everything to do with the fact that producers and consumers were and are suffering at the hands of intermediary oil traders, particularly investment banks, and now hedge funds.

Although absolute levels of oil prices are based upon supply and demand, the level of volatility has been way too high due to systemic market manipulation resulting in massive hedging losses.

It's a phenomenon J K Galbraith called "the Bezzle" - where the losers do not know they are losing.... It means that the derivative tail has been wagging the oil market dog, and in fact oil markets are - courtesy of hedge funds - an accident waiting to happen, probably next Winter. Why? Because unlike the LTCM hedge fund debacle in financial markets, the Fed can't print oil to bail people out......

What reason do I have for saying this? Simply that the Iranian authorities accepted my arguments - as a former Director of the International Petroleum Exchange - some 4 years ago, and subsequently appointed my consortium to carry out a Feasibility study.

www.opencapital.net/papers/Iranexchange.pdf

In fact, it really does not matter what currency oil is sold in: that's merely a transactional issue.

What matters is what assets (or rather, liabilities) the proceeds are invested in. Where Mr Clark has a point.

Regards

Chris Cook

http://peakoil.com/post235825.html#235825

[auagroach]

21. ???????

The arguement that it doesn't matter what currency oil is priced must be a C.I.A. sponsored psy/op. When it is only possible to buy oil in U.S. Federal reserve notes it goes to follow the necessity to stockpile said currency. Anybody that decries otherwise is suspect to say the least.

[chrisfloyd]

23. CIA Sponsored psy/op?

Hardly.

My feelings are whomever seeded the Iranian Bourse US currency takedown story is suspect.

For it's disinformation if anything.

I have emailed back and forth with Chris Cook because I was certain that the Iranian Bourse story was a legitimate underlying cause for aggression again Iran.

But it's not.

Go read the take on it from people who really know what they are talking about.

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/2/24/7575/84230

Eurotrib.com is an offshoot of Dailykos and Boomantribune.

Jerome a Paris is a Frenchman - and a energy trader in Paris. I did not agree with all his points, but I respect his knowledge.

But I have since, due to diligent research, learnt a lot more about the said subject.

A full challenge to the domination of the dollar as world central bank reserve currency entails a de facto declaration of war on the ‘full spectrum dominance’ of the United States.

The European Central Bank Council know this... The heads of state of every EU country know this... The Chinese leadership as well as Japanese and Indian know it... as does does Putin.

Until there is a cohesive challenge to the unbridled domination of the USA as sole superpower, there will be no Euro or Yen or even Chinese Yuan challenging the role of the dollar.

At the end of December, Sven Arild Andersen, Director of the Oslo Bourse, announced he was fed up with depending on the London oil bourse trading oil in dollars. Norway, a major oil producer, selling most of its oil into Euro countries in the EU, he said, should set up its own oil bourse and trade its oil in Euros.

Tell me.

Will NATO member Norway become the next target for the wrath of the Pentagon?

Hardly.

[Barrett808]

30. Mike Ruppert says: Rapprochement? US will not attack Iran

Rapprochement?
Not Only Will the US Not Attack Iran, It Looks Like the Biggest Thaw in US/Iranian Relations Since 1979 is Suddenly and Inexplicably Underway

48 Hours That Changed the World – Oil Bourse Disappears; US-Iran OK Bi-Lateral Talks

by
Michael C. Ruppert

March 27, 2006 1330 PST (FTW) - ASHLAND -March 20 and 21st, 2006 may prove to be historic days. The Iranian Oil Bourse set to open on March 20th, selling oil in Euros, was quietly “delayed,” instantly reducing the number of mounting international threats to dollar viability. The only press story we could find anywhere on the delay made it sound like Iran had never planned to open a bourse in the first place, despite about two-dozen stories from around the world last year describing its pending debut. The next day Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei agreed to bi-lateral talks with the US over Iraq, opening the way for the first US-Iranian “state-level” talks since the fall of the Shah of Iran. The moves come at a time when it seems the belligerent rhetoric from both sides couldn’t be more intense.

What gives?

...

THE DISAPPEARING BOURSE AND A NOTE TO WILLIAM ENGDAHL

The story about Iran’s International Oil Exchange (IOX), better known as the bourse, needs to be repeated here in totality. It was released by the Russian news agency, Novosti.

...

What’s key to note is that the first story was released by a Russian wire and the second by a Chinese wire. We can assume then that whatever is going on, Russia and China are part of the deal. Although the story about Qatar didn’t say it—Qatar is home to the US Central Command headquarters—there’s little doubt that the Qatari bourse would/will be denominated in dollars.

..

Not since the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 has Iran agreed to talk at a state level with the United States. The US has taken a corresponding position since then as well. At a time when media-pumped, hostile rhetoric has reached new levels, and when conservative think tanks are frantically shoveling propaganda about how the US might attack Iran over its alleged nuclear-weapons research, a March 21st announcement by Iran’s Supreme Leader (with full authority over foreign affairs) the Ayatollah Khamenei has agreed to bi-lateral talks with the US over Iraq.

That development is a serious inconsistency (embarrassment) for all those screaming that an attack on Iran is imminent. It is also an embarrassment for the hard-line Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran.

(more)

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/members/032706_rapprochment.shtml

[chrisfloyd]

32. Gold and oil

Since the 1970's - when Richard Nixon first abrogated the Bretton Woods Treaty and refused to redeem US dollars held by foreign central banks for gold bullion - the establishment from Wall St to Washington has maintained the status of the dollar as unchallenged global reserve currency.

But the role is not a purely economic one. And the Iranian Oil Bourse will not impact

Reserve currency status is an reflection of global power, of the US determination to dominate other nations and the global economic process.

The US didn’t get reserve currency status by a democratic vote of world central banks, nor did the British in the 19th Century.

They fought wars for it.

For that reason, the status of the dollar as reserve currency depends more on the status of the United States as the world’s unchallenged military superpower.

Since 1971 the dollar stopped being backed by gold and is now backed by F-16’s and Abrams battle tanks, operating in some 130 US bases around the world, defending liberty and the dollar.

The combined defense spending of all nations of the EU today pales by comparison to the total of current US budgeted and unbudgeted defense spending. US defense outlays will reach an official, staggering level of $663 billion in the current Fiscal 2007 year. The combined EU spending amounts to a mere $75 billion, with tendency declining, in part owing to ECB Maastricht deficit pressures on its governments.

You think that will be wiped out by the Iranian Oil Bourse? Or the Norwegian one perhaps?

The dollar and US economic hegemony is threatened by a number of things.

Factors Destabilizing the Dollar

· The real-estate bubble starts collapsing
· Bank of China’s decision to allow investors to buy and sell gold using their USD
· Continued increase of U.S. public and trade deficits in 2006
· Growing doubts in the U.S. themselves on the reliability and interpretation of US economic statistics
· The Potential for Military Intervention in Iran
· Increasing risk of Conflict with China

One of the best reads on the chess game involving Iran right now is F. William Engdahl

Calculating the Risk of War in Iran

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20EN20060129&articleId=1841

[IndianaGreen]

38. A great and informative post, chrisfloyd

Thanks!

[susu369]

42. Chris Floyd

With no intentions of getting this thread off track, I just have to say DU is highly honored to have Chris Floyd share his thoughts.

With total awe and admiration - thank you.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. The WMD lie isn't working this time, is it, Kindasleazy??

[Oversea Visitor]

10. Help help

Monster under bed.

Losing creadibility one thing working to put it into a pit forever with no ladder something else.
For heaven sake think longterm condi lice
What have they done to US?
NOTHING
What have you done to US?
Destroy it forever

Blinking idoits bush and co

[The Wielding Truth]

11. Stop them before they kill again. Bush Co. on the move. Same old.....

push to dominance. What I don't understand is how they creep and grow and spread. It seems like a virus that we can't recognize. Then when we expose it there is a small change and our antibodies can't recognize it again.
Maybe it's not the Avian Flu but the Neocon Flu that will be more destructive.

[radfringe]

16. banging war drums and rattling the swords

my guess - if repubs retain power in congress after Nov. bush will invade Iran by march 2007

sooner if there is a terrattack on US soil that they can blame on Iran

[teryang]

17. Bush belligerence - menace to world peace

Is it true that Bolton is going to be the chief of staff?

[Disturbed]

19. She's got her whip ready to flog the evil doers.

“You can’t allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them, because if they commit the crime, thousands of innocent people die,” Condoleezza Rice

[BootinUp]

24. Was that quote from

Condisleeza or the movie the Minority Report?

[Bassic]

22. God dammit, I hope the dems win a fuckin majority this fall.

That way they can at least cut off the money supply to these fuckin blood thirsty maniacs.

[HeatherDawn]

25. Iran is threatening to accept only Euros for their oil

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

that's why the U.S. is going to invade Iran. I even hypothesize we are intentionally starting a civil war in Iraq so that we can blame it on Iran and have another reason for invading them, not just the weak WMD excuse. Also, because Russia is trying to deter us from attacking Iran suddenly it is "revealed" that Russia warned Saddam of our attack plans prior to the invasion.

I wonder where we are gonna get the troops for all of this?????

[dweller]

31. good question

thanks for the article from Paul.

dp

[0007]

36. It certainly isn't clear to me where the troops will come from,

not unless they plan on just bombing missions to get the job done. Which I think will be a big big mistake.

[goclark]

26. She is one dangerous person

She is probably the most dangerous of them all because she is a female and presents herself as "intelligent" and self assured.

She is worse than Bush because everyone can see he is a clown every day.

I am African American and though most African Americans can see through her wicked ways, other people see her as possibly compassionate just because she is a minority.

[salin]

27. Hey "Mushroom Cloud" Rice...

how does it feel to have no credibility beyond your inner circle? Lie down with dogs, and you know how the rest of the saying goes.... Do you really think that members of the bush family are going to support you politically in the future as payback for your "loyalty"?

[Javaman]

28. condi, I never ever had an original thought ever, rice...

spouting on and on about new and improved bullshit now that Iran is dipping it's toe into the diplomatic pond.

moron* and his wife, nuke cloud rice, need to ratchet up the bullshit before this thing blows up into peace before they have a chance to drop their bombs.

what a colossal bunch of fuck-tards.

[Supersedeas]

29. More scatter shot vagaries dressed up as possible rationals for war

[area51]

33. "Iran is the single biggest threat from a state that we face"

:boring:

Sleaza, you're recycling your lies about Iraq. How lazy & unimaginative of you. :eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

37. In other words, US wants war no matter what Iran does!

They are following the same script they did with Iraq, and they have almost the same war enablers on the Democratic side to help them.

[BenDavid]

39. To all you folks that watch "24"

is it not a little scary that condi rice reminds one of Sherry Palmer...

[JawJaw]

40. Here we go again..

"I think there's no doubt that Iran is the single biggest threat"

We don't CARE what "you think" - you are delusional, after all.

"no doubt" - no, it's just your warped opinions and spin again, Ms Rice.

[sadiesworld]

41. Speaking of menaces. n/t