William Thomas / willthomasonline.net – 2008-02-10 00:03:41
A COMPELLING REASON TO MESS WITH THOSE UNDERSEA CABLES OFF DUBAI
(February 7, 2008) — Iran’s long and nervously awaited oil bourse is once again set to open ”imminently”. Iran’s Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari has just told the world press, “All preparations have been made to launch the bourse; it will open during the Ten-Day Dawn.”
The ceremonies, which mark the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, traditionally take place between February 1 and 11.
Many financial wizards expect that when the country holding one of the world’s largest remaining oil reserves begins demanding euros instead of dollars for its “black gold”, the greenback could crash dive. It’s a metaphor that brings to mind USS Jimmy Carter, a specially retrofitted US nuclear submarine modified to tap into undersea fiber-optic cables that carry most of the Middle East’s telephone and Internet traffic. (See my previous blog, “Did Secret Sub Sever Cables?” ) [MK/JG/RE/HAR, Iran Press TV, Energy Bulletin Feb 3/08]
Chris Cook, former director of the International Petroleum Exchange, says that oil is not priced in dollars.
Dollars are priced in oil.
“This is eerie,” comments Energy Bulletin. And dangerous. The US economy’s weakness is that it is consumption and deficit based. “If proceeds from oil sales are not being invested in US Treasury Bonds or other US assets” — now increasingly seen by investors as liabilities — “then it makes it that much more difficult for the dollar to avoid further declines”, Cook comments. [Energy Bulletin Feb 3/08]
He should know. His Wimpole Consortium originated and drew up the blueprints for the Iran oil Bourse. Though Cook maintains, “The currency of the IOB contracts was never a consideration,” the Energy Bulletin notes that the Iranian Bourse “cuts out the dollar as a currency in which to trade oil.“
Oops!
The bourse’s launch has been again for years as three successive Iranian oil ministry officials failed to find hard-line political backing for a move that must have frightened the mullahs, who had seen Iraq brutally seized by invading U.S. troops soon after Saddam Hussein switched his country’s oil trading currency from dollars to euros.
Many observers see the Bush administration’s constant threats to attack Iran as intimidation aimed at scuttling the ever-impending oil bourse. But when Chris Cook wrote directly to Iranian President Ahmadinejad, a drastic shake up of the Oil Ministry followed.
Once again, with his unfailing knack for turning opportunities into disaster, GW Bush had done it to Americans by using the US Treasury Department to pressure international businesses to leave Iran. After the German Deutsche Bank’s closed its Teheran office, Treasury warned more than 40 other banks it would “follow a strict interpretation of US and United Nations restrictions on doing business with Tehran.”
The Treasury Department also “bullied” two Iranian banks — Sepah and Saderat — “barring them access to the US financial system for dollar transactions through third-party banks,” the Financial Times reported.
The highly controversial sanctions against Iran only slightly inconvenienced the regime, which simply switched from German and Swiss banks to Far Eastern banks, who were happy to take their business. But as many predicted, the ill-considered move did succeed in sparking severe blowback.
The bourse was fast-tracked.
Though global oil prices are determined by supply and demand, Cook believes that the new Iranian Oil Bourse will “remove much of the current price volatility caused by a toxic combination of speculation by hedge funds and market manipulation by intermediary traders,” the Energy Bulletin reports.
But… “The IOB’s scrapping the dollar, if not practically then psychologically is going to significantly embody a counterweight to dollar domination of the oil markets.”
If it works. And there’s the rub-a-dub-dub.
Because the Iranian Oil Bourse for trading Middle East oil in euros (and other currencies) is Internet-dependent.
“The bourse will be trading on a concept that is new in the oil markets but which is already operating in other fields,” the Energy Bulletin explains. Just as in South America, where participating countries barter locally produced raw materials and for Venezuela’s oil, buyers and sellers in the Middle East and beyond will “connect via the Internet on a peer to peer market place.”
And this means…
“There won’t be any trading intermediaries such as investment banks as middlemen that are making hefty profits.”
The communciations chokepoint of the vital undersea cable network serving the new Oil Bourse headquarters is the luxury Persian Gulf island of Kish, (pronounced “quiche”), close off Dubai. Travel brochures boast, “No headscarves here!”
And the diving is spectaular…
Demolishing the deficit-dollar by pricing oil in euros – and eliminating massive investment bank brokerage profits – is a threatened double-whammy Washington cannot ignore.
So why not use its fiber-optic tapping sub to mess with those undersea Internet cables off Dubai – while sea- and land-based electronic monitoring (ELINT) stations plot the “work-arounds” used by affected countries to reroute their Internet traffic – for future targeting?
Sheer speculation, of course.
But five cable breaks in the same region in less than two weeks is a bit too “coincidental” for comfort. And the timing of such significant Middle East Internet disruptions could also be sending another signal through those severed cables.
At the very least, spending $1 billion and five years’ shipyard downtime to retrofit a Seawolf-class attack sub with advanced tech capable of splicing into underwater fiber optic cables shows the seriousness of US intentions to mess with crucial cable communications.
Put this technology, timing and events together and “Cable Gate” seems a more likely explanation than interference from submerged space aliens worried about the IOB’s impact on currency exchange rates on Aldeberan.
Take your pick.
And watch for the bourse to surface.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, US Code, for noncommecial, educational purposes.
http://willthomasonline.wordpress.com
Commentary
Daniel I. Fearn
Conspiracy theory or commencement of hostilities? I’ll leave that to you. I can very easily believe the cutting of cables in the Middle and Far East as a prelude to war. I don’t think I could be surprised by anything Bush & Co. try. But, I wasn’t prepared for the shock I found on Wikipedia. There is already an article online. Somebody working weekends at the CIA? It’s well done with plenty of references. And, if you look at any of the various articles on cable; you’ll find the 2008 event mentioned and references. Somebody worked hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruption
“In both WWI and WWII, an accepted act of war was to cut the enemy’s submarine telegraph cables, splice onto them, and run them ashore to your own cable station — and *keep* the captured cable after the war. Germany lost its cables to the U.S. in both World Wars that way, while the Allies cut Japanese cables throughout the Pacific, and only put them back together after the wars (http://www.iscpc.org/information/Narative_Cable_History.htm )
So is it a coincidence? Here’s what I posted to ADSC.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30907
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30909
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30910
And, here’s some other pertinent documents.
http://www.specialoperations.com/Operations/ivybells.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=7980
Is something going down? Looks like it. I think we need someone with a bit more expertise than me. Someone from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity perhaps?
