Why Russia Betrayed Iran
By Mike Whitney
07 February, 2006
UruknetMany people are probably wondering why Russia caved in at the IAEA board meeting and agreed to have Iran sent before the UN Security Council. Russia, of course, is very familiar with Iran’s nuclear program (having worked with Iran on its nuclear power plants) and fully realizes that the Mullahs are not developing nuclear weapons.
So, why would they go along with the coercive maneuvering of the United States that is so clearly designed to pave the way for war?
Obviously, the Russian foreign minister’s comment that the referral to the UNSC is "only a warning" doesn’t adequately explain why Russia would have placed its ally in such grave danger of a preemptive attack.
So why did Russia capitulate?
It may be, in the words of the Godfather, that the Bush administration made Putin "a deal he couldn’t refuse".
Russia’s real goal has always been to reclaim its contract-rights to explore and extract oil from the huge West Qurna-2 oil-field. This apparently was part of a previous agreement that Lukoil made with Saddam that was ignored after the invasion by American forces.
According to the Boston Globe, Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov met with Iraq’s oil minister Ibrahim al-Ulloum to firm up "an understanding" about Russia’s $6 billion contract to develop the West Qurna-2 oil field.
Was there a quid pro quo between the Bush administration and Putin?
Iraq’s oil minister is presumably just following Washington’s directives in reviving the moribund Russian contract. But it is striking that Bush would surrender such an enormous trophy as one of Iraq’s main oil fields just to secure Russia’s vote. After all, the administration doesn’t give away oil fields to anyone.
Why?
Does the administration really need a war with Iran so desperately?
Yes.
Even the control of oil is not nearly as critical to the US as maintaining its continued dominance in the exchange of oil in greenbacks. If Iran is allowed to open its oil bourse (exchange) in March and openly compete with the US’s monopoly on trading oil in petrodollars, the central banks across the globe will dump hundreds of billions of dollars overnight, and the American economy will collapse.
This is a problem Washington takes very seriously and we can expect to see Democrats and Republicans alike falling in line behind Bush for a war with Iran.
The reason the United States is the unchallenged leader of the global economic system is because it has a stranglehold on the oil trade. Even the oil itself, or the price at which it is sold, is of less importance than the means by which it is traded. The nation that controls the currency, determines the rules of the game. It forces other nations to stockpile mountains of its debt-ridden script, while producing oceans of red ink. America’s fat-cat bankers, corporatists, and politicos are now living off the profits from sweatshops in the developing world that prop up the ailing dollar so they can purchase oil. Iran’s plan to sell its oil in petro-euros threatens to break up this massive extortion-ring and put the greenback nose-to-nose with its global competitor; the euro.
The Lukoil transaction should prove to skeptics that Washington will do anything to prevent the opening of Iran’s oil exchange, even if it means initiating hostilities against another peaceful nation. Bush is determined to preserve the present economic-system of global-servitude via debt and protect the ongoing supremacy of the greenback.
The UN Security Council is just the last step before military operations begin.
Courtesy and Copyright © Mike Whitney
