Iran's really big weapon (From the Wilderness)

[Logan]

Iran's really big weapon

By MARTIN WALKER
UPI Editor
January 19, 2006
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=
20060118-052333-1392r

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- The prospect of a mushroom cloud rising from the Dasht-e-Lut, Iran's Desert of Stones, may not be Tehran's greatest threat to international stability. A successful test of an Iranian nuclear weapon at some point in the next few years may prove less destabilizing than a simple free market economic measure that Iran is said to be planning for March of this year.
Tehran is preparing to open a bourse, a mercantile exchange and potentially a futures market, where traders can buy and sell oil and gas, along the lines of the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London and the NYTMEX in New York.
The differences are first, that this one would price its energy in euros, not dollars, and second, that it would not use West Texas Intermediate or Brent Crude (from the North Sea) as its standard oil for pricing. It would use a Persian Gulf-produced oil instead.
So what? This sounds like a minor change, and possibly even a useful one, broadening the choice among traders and consumers in the kind of way that Adam Smith, the 18th century father of modern capitalism, would have recommended.
Not so. This could be a far more profoundly punishing blow to American interests than Iran's ability to manufacture a crude atom bomb that would have little credibility until it became small and stable and reliable enough to be delivered on some putative target.
The relationship between the oil price and dollar is intimate and important, and very useful to the dollar's highly profitable status as the world's reserve currency. The prospect of a rival bourse and futures market opens the intriguing possibility, beyond hedging the future oil price, of profitable arbitrage between the euro and the dollar.
And if oil and gas are to be denominated in more than just one currency, why not open the trade to others? Why not denominate the price of a barrel of oil in Japanese Yen, or in Chinese yuan, the currency of the world's second biggest oil importer?
Why not, in short, end the monopoly rule of the almighty dollar?
Such a move would not be welcomed in Washington, which swiftly moved after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 to reverse Saddam Hussein's impudent decision to start selling Iraqi oil for euros, rather than dollars. After all, the great benefit of running the world's reserve currency means that if all else fails, the United States Treasury can just print more and more of the stuff and pay for its oil imports that way.
There are, naturally, limits to the degree to which the United States can debase its currency, as the world found with the first great OPEC price rise of 1973, when the price per barrel tripled. This is usually attributed to the political decision by Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil producers to punish the United States for its decisive support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. That is partly true, but the crucial OPEC decision was as a direct result of President Richard Nixon's Aug. 15 decision to end the dollar's link to the gold standard.
The dollar declined in value, which meant the OPEC producers received less value for their oil. So at their Beirut meeting on Sept. 22, OPEC adopted resolution XXV:140, which resolved to take "any necessary action ... to offset any adverse effects on the per barrel real income of member countries resulting from the international monetary developments as of Aug. 15."
That was also the time when Sheikh Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister, first mentioned the possibility of deploying the ultimate weapon of an oil embargo.
Most of the financial world is currently awaiting another, similar devaluation of the dollar, in response to the monstrous scale of current deficit on the U.S. current account. Writing in the Financial Times last week, Harvard Professor Marty Feldstein suggested that on the basis of the 1985-87 Louvre and Plaza devaluations, the dollar could fall as much as 40 percent or even more.
The markets simply do not know when. But should it come after an Iranian bourse is up and running, some very tidy sums could be made by those playing a dollar-euro trade on Tehran's energy futures market.
The Tehran bourse is listed as an objective for this year in Iran's current five-year plan. The Tehran Times reported July 26 that the final authorizations had been received for the bourse to go ahead. Mohammad Javad Asemipour, the technocrat and former deputy petroleum minister who has been charged with launching the bourse, has made a number of discreet scouting trips to London, Frankfurt, Moscow and Paris. Just after Christmas, he was quoted by the Iran Labor News Agency saying "transparency in oil transactions would be one of the advantages of having such an establishment "(the bourse), and adding that this would "allow dealers access to related information and promote equal trade opportunities."
Asemipour is an elusive type, but one who seems convinced that Iran can play off the European against the Americans, the euro against the dollar. Just over a year ago, he was quoted in the quasi-official Iran Daily saying that the Europeans have played "a beautiful game" with the United States during the years of sanctions, when they actively participated in economic projects, particularly in the energy sector, across Iran.
"In this game, the Europeans have pretended to be siding with America, whereas they got involved in business here and developed a sort of competition with the Americans," he said. "But in practice, they (the Europeans) have pursued their own interests." There is no shortage of officials in the Bush administration who nurture such suspicions of the French and Germans, despite what seems at the moment to be a common concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The question now is whether the world's traders will come to a Tehran Bourse if and when it opens, bearing in mind that a similar idea in Dubai failed to gain much traction. But that was before oil prices reached $65 a barrel, and before the Dubai's partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council decided it was time to stop glowering at Iran as a potential enemy, and started to invite Tehran to their meetings as an observer. Before, that is, the Arab world began to judge that whatever the American intentions, Iran had become the real winner of the Iraq War.
The world could be about to change much faster than we think, whether or not Iran tests an atomic device. There are other, possibly more devastating weapons available that could hit a financially vulnerable American where it hurts most.

[Logan]

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse

Abstract: the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the American Empire.

By Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.

I. Economics of Empires

01/19/06 "Gold Eagle" -- -- A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.

Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms-usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver. Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.

For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation. It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods-the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax. Here is how this happened.

Early in the 20th century, the U.S. economy began to dominate the world economy. The U.S. dollar was tied to gold, so that the value of the dollar neither increased, nor decreased, but remained the same amount of gold. The Great Depression, with its preceding inflation from 1921 to 1929 and its subsequent ballooning government deficits, had substantially increased the amount of currency in circulation, and thus rendered the backing of U.S. dollars by gold impossible. This led Roosevelt to decouple the dollar from gold in 1932. Up to this point, the U.S. may have well dominated the world economy, but from an economic point of view, it was not an empire. The fixed value of the dollar did not allow the Americans to extract economic benefits from other countries by supplying them with dollars convertible to gold.

Economically, the American Empire was born with Bretton Woods in 1945. The U.S. dollar was not fully convertible to gold, but was made convertible to gold only to foreign governments. This established the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. It was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with provisions, demanding gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world's gold. An Empire would not have been possible if, following the Bretton Woods arrangement, the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to fully exchange back dollars for gold. However, the guns-and-butter policy of the 1960's was an imperial one: the dollar supply was relentlessly increased to finance Vietnam and LBJ's Great Society. Most of those dollars were handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods, without the prospect of buying them back at the same value. The increase in dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax-the classical inflation tax that a country imposes on its own citizens, this time around an inflation tax that U.S. imposed on rest of the world.

When in 1970-1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971. While the popular spin told the story of "severing the link between the dollar and gold", in reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. Essentially, the U.S. declared itself an Empire. It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods, and the world was powerless to respond- the world was taxed and it could not do anything about it.

From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever-depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those depreciating dollars. It had to give the world an economic reason to hold them, and that reason was oil.

In 1971, as it became clearer and clearer that the U.S Government would not be able to buy back its dollars in gold, it made in 1972-73 an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia to support the power of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only U.S. dollars for its oil. The rest of OPEC was to follow suit and also accept only dollars. Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil. Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at ever increasing oil prices, the world's demand for dollars could only increase. Even though dollars could no longer be exchanged for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil.

The economic essence of this arrangement was that the dollar was now backed by oil. As long as that was the case, the world had to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars, because they needed those dollars to buy oil. As long as the dollar was the only acceptable payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world. If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist. Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars. It also dictated that oil reserves were spread around various sovereign states that weren't strong enough, politically or militarily, to demand payment for oil in something else. If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political pressure or military means, to change his mind.

The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in 2000. At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant business, political pressure was exerted to change his mind. When other countries, like Iran, wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen, the danger to the dollar was clear and present, and a punitive action was in order. Bush's Shock-and-Awe in Iraq was not about Saddam's nuclear capabilities, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields; it was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire. It was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.

Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields. However, those critics can't explain why Bush would want to seize those fields-he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs. He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.

History teaches that an empire should go to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war; if not, as Paul Kennedy illustrates in his magisterial The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a military overstretch will drain its economic resources and precipitate its collapse. Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs. Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost. Instead, Bush must have gone into Iraq to defend his Empire. Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was terminated, the Iraqi Euro accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil was sold once again only for U.S. dollars. No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro. Global dollar supremacy was once again restored. Bush descended victoriously from a fighter jet and declared the mission accomplished-he had successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.

II. Iranian Oil Bourse

The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate "nuclear" weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006. It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam's, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether. If so, then it is likely that almost everyone will eagerly adopt this euro oil system:

[Logan]

The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies. The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans.
The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with Euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar. One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; a second portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their dollars they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing those dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves.
The Russians have inherent economic interest in adopting the Euro - the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan. Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, the Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold. Russians have also revived their nationalism, and if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed.
The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversifying against rising mountains of depreciating dollars. Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk, not to mention their jihad against the Infidel Enemy.
Only the British will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They have had a strategic partnership with the U.S. forever, but have also had their natural pull from Europe. So far, they have had many reasons to stick with the winner. However, when they see their century-old partner falling, will they firmly stand behind him or will they deliver the coup de grace? Still, we should not forget that currently the two leading oil exchanges are the New York's NYMEX and the London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), even though both of them are effectively owned by the Americans. It seems more likely that the British will have to go down with the sinking ship, for otherwise they will be shooting themselves in the foot by hurting their own London IPE interests. It is here noteworthy that for all the rhetoric about the reasons for the surviving British Pound, the British most likely did not adopt the Euro namely because the Americans must have pressured them not to: otherwise the London IPE would have had to switch to Euros, thus mortally wounding the dollar and their strategic partner.

At any rate, no matter what the British decide, should the Iranian Oil Bourse accelerate, the interests that matter-those of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, and Arabs-will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar. Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the operation's exchange:

Sabotaging the Exchange-this could be a computer virus, network, communications, or server attack, various server security breaches, or a 9-11-type attack on main and backup facilities.
Coup d'état-this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans.
Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations-this is another excellent solution to the Americans. Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d'etat fails, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option.
Joint U.N. War Resolution-this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other member-states of the Security Council. Feverish rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action.
Unilateral Nuclear Strike-this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The Americans will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job.
Unilateral Total War-this is obviously the worst strategic choice. First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars. Secondly, the Americans will further alienate other powerful nations. Third, major dollar-holding countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions. Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop and a separate pact with Syria.

Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar. The collapsing dollar will dramatically accelerate U.S. inflation and will pressure upward U.S. long-term interest rates. At this point, the Fed will find itself between Scylla and Charybdis-between deflation and hyperinflation-it will be forced fast either to take its "classical medicine" by deflating, whereby it raises interest rates, thus inducing a major economic depression, a collapse in real estate, and an implosion in bond, stock, and derivative markets, with a total financial collapse, or alternatively, to take the Weimar way out by inflating, whereby it pegs the long-bond yield, raises the Helicopters and drowns the financial system in liquidity, bailing out numerous LTCMs and hyperinflating the economy.

The Austrian theory of money, credit, and business cycles teaches us that there is no in-between Scylla and Charybdis. Sooner or later, the monetary system must swing one way or the other, forcing the Fed to make its choice. No doubt, Commander-in-Chief Ben Bernanke, a renowned scholar of the Great Depression and an adept Black Hawk pilot, will choose inflation. Helicopter Ben, oblivious to Rothbard's America's Great Depression, has nonetheless mastered the lessons of the Great Depression and the annihilating power of deflations. The Maestro has taught him the panacea of every single financial problem-to inflate, come hell or high water. He has even taught the Japanese his own ingenious unconventional ways to battle the deflationary liquidity trap. Like his mentor, he has dreamed of battling a Kondratieff Winter. To avoid deflation, he will resort to the printing presses; he will recall all helicopters from the 800 overseas U.S. military bases; and, if necessary, he will monetize everything in sight. His ultimate accomplishment will be the hyperinflationary destruction of the American currency and from its ashes will rise the next reserve currency of the world-that barbarous relic called gold.

About the Author: Krassimir Petrov (Krassimir_Petrov@hotmail.com) has received his Ph. D. in economics from the Ohio State University and currently teaches Macroeconomics, International Finance, and Econometrics at the American University in Bulgaria. He is looking for a career in Dubai or the U. A. E.

[Logan]

Iran’s Oil Bourse: A Threat to the U.S. Economy?

by Niusha Boghrati
Worldpress.org
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_14809.shtml

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

While Iran's nuclear program has become a major focus of the international media, there are many who strongly believe that the program is only a cover for the U.S. government's true motive in a possible attack against Iran.

What some analysts posit is the real concern for the United States is Iran's plan to open its own oil exchange ? the Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB) ? with the alleged goal of becoming the dominant center of the Middle East's oil trade.

What makes the IOB the subject of such interest by the American government? According to rumors, which first vaulted the issue into the spotlight, the financial exchange in the aforementioned bourse will trade for oil in euros instead of the U.S. dollar. The dollar has long been the dominant currency for international oil trade.

A Threat to the U.S. Economy?

The debate over the ultimate financial impact of trading oil in euros rather than dollars is a complex one, but according to some experts such a move could lead to a huge drop in value for the American currency, potentially putting the U.S. economy in its greatest crisis since the depression era of the 1930s.
The IOB has been on Iran's domestic agenda for quite some time and different dates have informally been announced for its opening, all which have been quietly disavowed as the deadline neared.

March 20, the most recent rumored date, was the first day of the Persian calendar year. The Iranian Oil Ministry's public relations department has denied that the date corresponded to the opening of the bourse, and has mostly remained silent about the existence of such a program.

Of course, the effectiveness of the IOB will depend on whether the big international oil trading companies decide to accept deals in euros or not. However, the potential financial impact on the U.S. economy remains more than just idle speculation.

"The weapon of oil in the hands of Iran's regime is more dangerous than any other weapon," said a recently published article in Italy's Panorama newsmagazine.

Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Javad Assemipour, director of the IOB program, told Panorama that the oil trading center, due to open in a few months, will turn Iran into a major oil exchange point.

"Iran's oil exchange with the region's countries and also some of the East Asia states will take place in euros instead of U.S. dollars," said Assemipour.

Some of the major oil-producing countries such as Venezuela (which has boosted its economic ties to Iran) and a few of the larger oil consuming countries, most notably China and India, have already announced their support for the IOB. China and India, along with Russia, are powers that have at various times backed Iran's right to establish its own nuclear program.
There is speculation that the IOB represents Iran's plan to escape any possible future economic sanctions spearheaded by the U.S. However, some postulate that the plan could also endanger the continued existence of Iran's regime. William Clark, an American security expert, predicted that if Iran threatened the hegemony of the U.S. dollar in the international oil market, the White House would immediately order a military attack against it.

Some Insist Impact will be Negligible

A number of economists believe that establishing the bourse will prove to be an impossible task for Iran.

"More than 68 percent of the global international oil exchange is in U.S. dollars, and by abandoning dollars Iran will put its own economy in greater danger," said an unnamed Iranian professor of Economics in Paris.

Other experts believe that even if the IOB commences operations, there is not much harm it can do to the U.S. economy.

"Given the fact that Iran's share of the international oil market is somewhere around 5 percent, I do not believe that it can really absorb enough customers around the globe," said Russian economist Natalia Arlova.

"And Iran's unstable political system is another obstacle. Let us not forget that one of the biggest characteristics of the international oil trade centers is stability. Apart from that, the reason the U.S. dollar has been the dominant currency in the oil trade is the huge share America has in the global economy. I do not think that only Iran's ambition to replace the dollar with the euro will be enough. There are much bigger factors."
However the IOB, to be located in the free trade zone of Iran's Kish Island on the Persian Gulf, remains a potential destabilizing factor for the U.S. economy. This, according to some strategic analysts, is a probable motive for the rumored U.S. attack against the country.

Experts point to the fact that the Iraq invasion in 2002 took place after Saddam Hussein refused to accept dollars as a payment medium for its oil exports and Oil For Food program, choosing euros instead. After discovering no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, speculations have been raised that the main cause for the invasion was the White House's fear of the possible financial repercussions of Saddam Hussein's plan to substitute dollars for euros.

Maybe it was that fateful decision by the former Iraqi president which was the last straw for the White House before it sent U.S. soldiers marching into Baghdad.

[Admin]

Great info! Just a reminder guys, that our articles section is more appropriate to post long articles like this as you will be able to post the entire article in one post and not to mention add to it to our central repository.

[Logan]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20EN20060310&a rticleId=2076

[eyes wide open]

One thing we have to remember.
China,as a result of this emerging tade with The U.S. and Japans long standing relationship with the U.S.
they need our glut to stabilize their own economys. We consume like no other country so this is why we are being helped out by the other countries who want to remain in our good graces, By not selling off their enormous amounts of U.S. Treasuries. Plus who knows we might go invade them for sum trumped up reason too not Japan I mean other countries that are heavily invested in the U.S. economy. Crush them and our debt to them is wiped out along with half their people and a country laid to waste. Sad sorry situation we find ourselves in.
Just a thought take care all.
Steve

[rottweiler]

Turkey Refuses U.S. Request To Allow Attack On Iran From Turkish Base

Report: Turkey won’t let U.S. attack Iran from its land

By YNetNews

04/30/06 "YNetNews" -- -- Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Sunday that his country refused a request from the United States to attack Iran from its Air Force base in Incirlik, despite the U.S. offer of a nuclear reactor, according to a report in Al Biyan.

In an interview for the United Arab Emirates newspaper, Gul noted that America’s efforts to attack Iran are “imaginary” and that Turkey’s stance is “strategic” and refuses the use of its land for any belligerent activity against neighboring countries. (Roee Nahmias)
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle12887.htm

[rottweiler]

I wonder how many people realize how close we are to TSHF.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4752831.stm

The following quote from the letter of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President George W Bush convinces me of what I have suspected all along. That the Iranian President and Saddam Hussein, like Bin Laden, all work for the Vatican. The goal being a worldwide police state and the final fleecing of the US. Another possible goal is Global 2000 which is the plan to eliminate 80-90% of the world's population. This genocide could start here if/when a violent uprising and/or a rounding up of "illegal aliens" starts.

from the BBC article:
"In another part of the letter, Mr Ahmadinejad suggests Washington has concealed elements of the truth about the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Reuters reports".

from the Iranian's letter to Bush:
"Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities?" he asks.

I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of sui juris members have seen enough evidence to know who really
was behind the 911 attacks. Our own government carried it out and covered it up..... Certainly the President of Iran with the intelligence resources at his disposal is aware that this is not just a simple matter of botched responsibilities. Why does he obfuscate the truth in his "letter" about who was really behind the attacks by promoting the party line? Next conclusion would be to figure out who controls our government and who has the power to control both sides of a conflict and why. I am convinced it is the Vatican.

We agree that the police state is coming if not here already. Can we see $6 gas and a lower standard of living from possible collapse of the dollar? Attacking Iraq drove up the price of oil by reducing Iraq's production just like Opec does by means of cartel combination. Bush is a oil man and Cheney is a Haliburton stooge. The oil companies report huge profits now. What kind of profits will they be reporting when/if bunker buster nukes go off in Iran? What will America be like then? At the bare minimum our standard of living and our rights are going to go DOWN to the banana republic level.

[rottweiler]

Here is the letter if anyone is interested.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12984.htm