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Now to those war drums and the speculation that's nowrife that the Bush administration has chosen Iran as
its next target. I read about it every day as well as
hear the same kind of strong administration rhetoric
hostile to Iran that we heard in the run-up to the
Iraq war. The demonizing campaign moved ahead further
in mid-February when Secretary of State Rice told the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee the US would
"actively confront" Iran and asked for an extra $75
million in funding for anti-Tehran propaganda and
support for opposition groups inside and outside the
country. It all points to one thing. The US may
launch an attack against the Iranians and do it as
early as March when Iran opens a new oil bourse and
begins trading in euros. Saddam did the same thing in
2000, providing the US an added reason to attack him,
and other oil producing countries including Venezuela,
Russia, Indonesia, Libya and Malaysia have also agreed
to sell oil in euros.
The sale of oil worldwide in dollars has been a key
support for the dollar and its stability through the
years.
The US will do whatever it takes to preserve
this. If enough countries begin selling their oil in
euros or other currencies (the Japanese yen is the
only other possibility), it would seriously undermine
the dollar and have grave consequences for the US
economy. The US, and especially the Bush
administration, will surely go to war to prevent this.
If the gold market and those reading this need more
evidence, consider these two jarring tidbits. Last
year former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter
said George Bush received and signed off on orders for
an aerial attack on Iran planned for last June. It
didn't happen then, but former CIA officer Philip
Giraldi also claims he has information that the
Pentagon was ordered by Vice President Dick Cheney to
draw up plans to attack Iran "to be employed in
response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the
United States... (and)... As in the case of Iraq, the
response is not conditional on Iran actually being
involved in the act of terrorism directed against the
United States......Iran is being set up for an
unprovoked nuclear attack" against them by the US.
Nervous anyone, especially those of us convinced our
own government was behind or complicit in the first
9/11 attack. A number of US government officials and
private "terrorism" experts are on record saying it's
just a matter of when, not if, the US will be struck
again. On June 6, 2003, the AP quoted a US government
report saying "There is a 'high probability' that
al-Qaida will attempt an attack with weapons of mass
destruction in the next two years." Are we being set
up to be duped again if there's a major strike against
us? You know the drill by now - a major attack
happens on US soil, the Bush administration and
complicit corporate media hype what happened, scare
the public and get them mad enough to demand
retribution, they blame it on Iran claiming secret
intelligence they can't reveal, and it's (nuclear)
bombs away - and George Bush's approval rating
skyrockets just like after 9/11, and the Republicans
keep control of both houses of Congress in November.
HOLD ON TO YOUR BULLION (IF YOU HAVE ANY)
-THINGS ARE WORSE THAN YOU THINK
As disturbing as another real or faked "terrorist"
attack is plus a new war, consider this. Under the
radar the US has been waging "nuclear war" against
Iraq by using so-called depleted uranium weapons (DU)
since the Gulf war in 1991. We also used them against
Afghanistan in 2001 and later as well as against
Serbia/Kosovo in 1999. These are radioactive and
chemically toxic weapons that are banned under the
Geneva and Hague Conventions, and any use of them in
combat or for any purpose is a war crime.
The military loves these weapons and uses them because
DU is a "dense metal" able to penetrate hard targets
like tanks and structures and explode inside them.
However, after exploding they also aerosolize into a
fine spray of submicroscopic particles that
contaminate the air, water and soil with toxic
radiation. They're also swept by winds into the
atmosphere and carried long distances, falling to
earth along the way and contaminating vast areas far
from the combat zone. The result in Iraq from the
Gulf war, repeated bombings using these weapons all
through the 1990s, and now with their intensive use
for nearly the last 3 years, is that vast areas of the
country are an irremediable, irradiated, toxic
wasteland. The country is largely unsafe for human
habitation forever (the radiation contamination has a
half-life of 4.5 billion years) even with an end to
hostilities, and there's no sign of that which only
makes things even worse.
The Bush administration has now stated its intention
to use so-called "mini-nukes" or "bunker-busters" as
conventional weapons in any area of conflict. They're
not "mini", but they sure are "nukes", about one third
as powerful as a Hiroshima bomb or stronger as they
can be made to any desired potency. Officially, these
weapons are called "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators",
and they work the same as other DU weapons -
penetrating a designated target before exploding
including those underground for protection. But since
these weapons are much stronger than the ones now
being used, the destruction and fallout from them will
be much greater. And should they be used, it's likely
that world instability will increase and cause great
reverberations including in the financial and gold
markets.
If the US attacks Iran, even by a "shock and awe"
strike from the air only with no invasion and with
so-called "mini-nukes", the Middle East may boil over
even more than it now has. But there's even
speculation the US will make a targeted invasion into
the area known as Khuzestan, the Iranian province
bordering Basra in Southern Iraq, where most of the
nation's oil is located (possibly as much as 90% by
some estimates). Make no mistake, the situation in
Iraq is hopeless, the war is lost and the US knows it
and will find a way to exit eventually even though
it's now spending billions on as many as 14 permanent
bases in the country. With that quagmire to resolve
and with the Arab street and entire Muslim world
justifiably inflamed, it's hard to imagine the US
would risk making things even worse by attacking Iran.
But that's what many writers and Middle East analysts
are now predicting. If they're right, the very risky
and uncertain fallout from it is what the gold market
may be signaling as the price of the precious metal
heads higher.
IRAN IS IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH NPT - YOU'D NEVER KNOW
IT FROM THE ONE-SIDED HOSTILE NEWS REPORTING
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty or NPT and is in full compliance with it. The
core of NPT is in Article IV which gives signatories
"an inalienable right to develop research, production
and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" and
acquire technology from other signatories to do so.
That's exactly what Iran is doing as opposed to Israel
which is not an NPT signatory and is known to have 200
or more nuclear bombs, a stated intent to use them if
they choose, and no condemnation of this by the world
community. Of course, Israel is a valued strategic
ally while Iran is an "outlier", going its own way and
refusing to bow to the dictates of the "Godfather" (a
no-no), Israel or any other nation. It follows that
launching an attack against them has nothing to do
with its legal right to develop commercial nuclear
power or even its right to defend itself against a
hostile US and Israel by building any weapons it feels
it needs. It's only about the long-term US desire for
regime change in this oil rich country. As in Iraq
(and also Venezuela and Syria) we want a government
subservient to the US, and, of course, we want the oil
- not access to it, but control of it, the profits
from it and being able to decide who gets it and who
does not. The plan isn't to take over Iran's exports
of carpets (the finest in the world), fruit or
pistachio nuts, but maybe the war hawks might want to
on second thought as they're worth about $39 billion a
year.
CONCLUSION
So where are we, and what's it all add up to - trouble
likely, maybe big trouble down the road that may come
sooner than most think. Will it, and is that what I'm
predicting? I've always loved the answer Hollywood
film mogul Louis B. Mayer once gave an interviewer
when asked how well he thought his newest movie would
do at the box office. He said he never liked making
predictions, especially about the future. Louis was a
lot smarter than I am, and I'll go along with him on
that one. I don't know what the US, in fact, will do
(or how gold and the financial markets will react) and
neither does anyone else outside the power circles
making these decisions. They may even be unsure
themselves at this time. But my best judgment is that
the gold market senses trouble and is sending an
ominous message that all is not well in the world, and
it's better to take cover in the traditional safest of
all safe havens than risk potential big losses in the
financial markets. As one market seer once said -
we'll know for sure "in the fullness of time." Place
your bets, and stay tuned.
Stephen Lendman
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