An interesting read:
Some quotes from the article:
The Laboratoire européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe 2020 (LEAP/E2020) now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006 will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929.
The announcement of this crisis results from the analysis of decisions taken by the two key-actors of the main on-going international crisis, i.e. the United States and Iran:
→ on the one hand there is the Iranian decision of opening the first oil bourse priced in Euros on March 20th, 2006 in Teheran, available to all oil producers of the region ;
→ on the other hand, there is the decision of the American Federal Reserve to stop publishing M3 figures (the most reliable indicator on the amount of dollars circulating in the world) from March 23, 2006 onward [1].
For private individuals, the choice is clear: the US Dollar no longer is a “refuge” currency. The rising-cost of gold over the last year shows that many people have already anticipated this trend of the US currency.
Now for the most imp question: Is US going to sit back and let the Iranian Oil Bourse come into effect. Saddam tried to sell oil in euros and he was taken out on grounds of weapons of mass destruction.
I dont think mere strikes on iranian nuclear facilities will change anything. They’ll either have to invade or destroy iran’s ability to pump oil i.e destroy their infrastructure. If you look more closely at iranian oilfields, majority of them are in the province of khuzestan bordering iraq. This province is also home to Iran’s disenchanted ethnic Arab population. Iranians have blamed the brits in the past of stirring racial tension in the province (last yr bombings) and today it was announced that the two bomb suspects (arabs) will be executed in a televised cermony, a move that will certainly not go well with the arab population.