Iran Invasion soon ?

[PCShogun]

Last warning

The rhetoric between Iran and the United States seems to be in a cooling down phase. I am wondering if everyone is just waiting to hear the latest findings from the last IAEA visit. Should they determine that the amount of 20% enrichment is within the scale required for a medical research reactor (a legitimate use of 20% EU) then perhaps we will see continued cooling of tensions.

I do not doubt that Iran has 20% enriched uranium (as they have declared this themselves), however, the quantity was much less than I had been led to believe by western media sources, in the area of 30kg. Not the 400kg needed to produce a bomb. I do understand the concern though, if you can make 30kg, 400kg is just a few more months of production away.

The sanctions are still set to start in July. That will be the game changer in my mind. Will Turkey and India up their purchases of Iranian energy?

 

[My2Cents]

The rhetoric between Iran and the United States seems to be in a cooling down phase. I am wondering if everyone is just waiting to hear the latest findings from the last IAEA visit. Should they determine that the amount of 20% enrichment is within the scale required for a medical research reactor (a legitimate use of 20% EU) then perhaps we will see continued cooling of tensions.

To cool the tensions Iran is going to have to give the IAEA full access to all their nuclear sites. Especially the ones that the Iranian dissidents claim exist, but possibly don’t.

And NO, Iran has not permitted this before. If Iran had other countries would have not believed Iran was trying to hide such a program, and the crisis would never have gotten much traction. :duel

 

[Palnatoke]

In my oppinion, the basic thing here is not about nukes or oil surply (as such).

The thing is that oil is traded in US-dollars, that gives tremendous economical advantages to the US. F.ex. that it can print money without many of the normal disadvantages that any other economy would suffer.

Now should Iran make real of it's threaths of opening an oil sale in euro (the currency is not important, just that it's not US-dollars) then I would say that the US has a big interest in damaging Iran, obviously millitary means could be in play here.
So Iran won't do that.

What Iran can do is to get a nuke and a reliable system of delivery that can hit a high value target, like a friendly city (check), and then Iran belongs in club of nations that can't be blackmailed, by millitary means.

Then Iran has a very good hand, because then it can blackmail the US, by challenging the dollar monopoli on oil.

 

[My2Cents]

In my oppinion, the basic thing here is not about nukes or oil surply (as such).

The thing is that oil is traded in US-dollars, that gives tremendous economical advantages to the US. F.ex. that it can print money without many of the normal disadvantages that any other economy would suffer.

Now should Iran make real of it's threaths of opening an oil sale in euro (the currency is not important, just that it's not US-dollars) then I would say that the US has a big interest in damaging Iran, obviously millitary means could be in play here.
So Iran won't do that.

What Iran can do is to get a nuke and a reliable system of delivery that can hit a high value target, like a friendly city (check), and then Iran belongs in club of nations that can't be blackmailed, by millitary means.

Then Iran has a very good hand, because then it can blackmail the US, by challenging the dollar monopoli on oil.

Sorry, economics does not work that way. The only way that Iran’s shifting the euro or yuan can hurt the US is if their value goes up permanently relative to the dollar. There is NO WAY that it allows the Federal Reserve (Fed for short) (not FedEx, that is a shipping service) to print more money.

 

[Todjaeger]

In my oppinion, the basic thing here is not about nukes or oil surply (as such).

The thing is that oil is traded in US-dollars, that gives tremendous economical advantages to the US. F.ex. that it can print money without many of the normal disadvantages that any other economy would suffer.

Now should Iran make real of it's threaths of opening an oil sale in euro (the currency is not important, just that it's not US-dollars) then I would say that the US has a big interest in damaging Iran, obviously millitary means could be in play here.
So Iran won't do that.

What Iran can do is to get a nuke and a reliable system of delivery that can hit a high value target, like a friendly city (check), and then Iran belongs in club of nations that can't be blackmailed, by millitary means.

Then Iran has a very good hand, because then it can blackmail the US, by challenging the dollar monopoli on oil.

If the issue was truly about which currency is used in petroleum sales, or that the US Dollar gets 'extra' advantages from being the currency for petroleum transactions, then why has there not been a significant movement for the Euro to displace the US Dollar?

Realistically, the concern with Iran having nuclear weapons, is what Iran might, could and would do with them. Given the rather poor relations Iran has with a number of other countries, both within the regional and around the globe, it is possible that Iran might opt to employ a nuclear device against another country before, during or after a conflict. This could be either via a direct attack (and Iran has been attempting to improve and expand their BM arsenal...) by potentially providing a device or devices to third party proxies.

Another area of potential concern with respect to Iran becoming a nuclear power, is the effect that could have within the Mideast and Central Asian regions. If Iran develops a nuclear arsenal, then Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, etc may well feel that they too, need to develop such an arsenal, to ensure that Iran could not utilize its nuclear weapons against them with impunity. This is how arms races occur, and conventional arms races are bad enough, nevermind a regional nuclear arms race.

A third area of potential concern is that if Iran develops nuclear weaponry, even if they are/were just for use to keep the current regime in power in the face of outside threats... A nuclear armed Iran might well decide to step up its various programmes which support outside groups with weapons and kit, secure in the knowledge that if international pressure becomes too great, Iran literally has a nuclear option. Iran is already known to support non-state actors in the Mideast, and has made comments about having an 'obligation to protect members of the Shia sect' outside of Iran following the suppression of various minority groups in different Gulf states during parts of the 'Arab Spring'. Whether any of the various suppressed groups have any ethnic, religious or cultural ties to Iran or not, I do not know...

-Cheers

 

[NICO]

I agree with Todjaeger, we haven't seem huge currency mvts because of Iran. I see this theory quite often on the conspiracy theory websites like ATS, the reason why USA invaded Iraq, Libya, maybe Iran today and country XYZ tomorrow is because USA wants to keep dollars as the money of transactions. The fact that trillions of US dollars are around which makes it so liquid compared to Euro or especially RMB don't seem to be accounted for.
Anyways, I think the nuke issue is the main driver here.

What I am more interested in, even if I don't believe in invasion or even airstrikes this year over Iran, is there a possibility that we will get a small heads up prior to the attack or do you guys believe Israel/USA can attack in complete surprise? I was trying to figure ways to detect even by a few hours maybe warning signs of impending attack.

It would be quite a large operation, probably hundreds of fighters and quite a few tankers, couple of AWACS,etc...Kind of hard to keep it ALL under wraps. Would we see a big sell off in the stock market, maybe the last hour of trading on a Friday? Wouldn't it be advantageous to attack on a weekend? Maybe a long 3 or 4 day weekend, something like a 4th of July week-end?Anybody know if Iran has some 3 day holidays coming up?

Would we see maybe not a 50 or 100 dollar gain in oil but a 20 dollar spike just a few hours before the news is out? Someone will know before hand and try to game this news, that's my theory.

Also what about weather conditions over Iran and other countries? You still have the need for good visibility over the targets to a certain extant even with PGMs or maybe Israel would attack in bad weather conditions hoping to catch Iranian defenses kind of off guard? What about the time, day or night?

I would like to hear if any one has any ideas on what could give us a bit of a warning that something is about to happen.

 

[Todjaeger]

What I am more interested in, even if I don't believe in invasion or even airstrikes this year over Iran, is there a possibility that we will get a small heads up prior to the attack or do you guys believe Israel/USA can attack in complete surprise? I was trying to figure ways to detect even by a few hours maybe warning signs of impending attack.

It would be quite a large operation, probably hundreds of fighters and quite a few tankers, couple of AWACS,etc...Kind of hard to keep it ALL under wraps. Would we see a big sell off in the stock market, maybe the last hour of trading on a Friday? Wouldn't it be advantageous to attack on a weekend? Maybe a long 3 or 4 day weekend, something like a 4th of July week-end?Anybody know if Iran has some 3 day holidays coming up?

Also what about weather conditions over Iran and other countries? You still have the need for good visibility over the targets to a certain extant even with PGMs or maybe Israel would attack in bad weather conditions hoping to catch Iranian defenses kind of off guard? What about the time, day or night?

I would like to hear if any one has any ideas on what could give us a bit of a warning that something is about to happen.

If there are going to be airstrikes conducted in/against Iran, there are a number of significant variables.

Firstly, what is the scope of the airstrikes and whom is conducting them? There is a very large difference between a single of small number of targeted precision airstrikes against key nuclear facilities, and an IADS rollback with C4ISR (if Iran is even that advanced...) and nuclear facility decapitation.

If the objective is very specific targets, IMO the USAF could sortie strike packages which would not be detected until the PGM's start hitting their targets.

In terms of weather, that would have little effect if the objectives are strategic targets, as these tend to be stationary so PGM's can utilize GPS/INS guidance and not require lasers or other E/O systems which can be negatively impacted by poor weather, darkness or smoke.

-Cheers

 

[the road runner]

If the issue was truly about which currency is used in petroleum sales, or that the US Dollar gets 'extra' advantages from being the currency for petroleum transactions, then why has there not been a significant movement for the Euro to displace the US Dollar?

Iran has been asking for India and China to pay for Irans oil in GOLD.As the US dollar is the worlds reserve currency all commodities are purchased in US dollars.
India have already purchased oil off Iran and paid in Gold,China wants to follow suite.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u7KnXyrKmQ"]India abandons US dollar to purchase Iranian oil - YouTube[/nomedia]

I assume the US would be very worried about countries purchasing Gold and using gold, or a commodity, traded for a commodity,while cutting the US dollar out of the deal.

 

[Todjaeger]

Iran has been asking for India and China to pay for Irans oil in GOLD.As the US dollar is the worlds reserve currency all commodities are purchased in US dollars.
India have already purchased oil off Iran and paid in Gold,China wants to follow suite.

India abandons US dollar to purchase Iranian oil - YouTube

I assume the US would be very worried about countries purchasing Gold and using gold, or a commodity, traded for a commodity,while cutting the US dollar out of the deal.

If a transaction is worked out exchanging one commodity for another, how are the values of the respective commodities compared against one another?

That is where a currency like the USD comes in, with oil having a market value of USD$nn/barrel at the time of exchange while the price of gold is USD$xx/ounce. Without that mechanism to compare the relative market values of the different commodities... The global exchange of goods and services runs into issues of availability and value rather quickly.

-Cheers

 

[the road runner]

That is where a currency like the USD comes in

Agreed.

There is not enough gold in the world to pay for all the transactions of the world,thus the US dollar as a medium of exchange.

I am curious about Iran asking Gold for Oil,might be a tactic so if its Bank account are frozen by the International community ,they can still function as a Government by paying its debts in Gold.

 

[ngatimozart]

Agreed.

There is not enough gold in the world to pay for all the transactions of the world,thus the US dollar as a medium of exchange.

I am curious about Iran asking Gold for Oil,might be a tactic so if its Bank account are frozen by the International community ,they can still function as a Government by paying its debts in Gold.

How do you know that there are isn't enough gold in the world to pay for oil. Since both Indian and China are paying Iran for oil with gold and Russia may do, like the commentator says, it will drive the price of gold up and drive the value of the US$ down. Originally all international debts were paid in gold and that was what currencies were valued against. It was the US who forced through the current currency valuation mechanism, the Trade Weighted Index. Russia will have a good supply of gold in Siberia and it also has a very large supply of diamonds, more than enough to well and truly put De Beers out of business over night. It is only by common agreement and good will that the US$ is used as a default currency. That good will can like steam evaporate. True there are lots of bank notes out in the world but do not forget that every bank note is not real money.

A bank note is an intangible, a promise that upon presentation that the bearer will receive another intangible, money. All money is, is a methodology for the exchange of goods and services. If you print more money and keep on printing, you devalue its worth because you only have so much physical treasure be it gold or goods against which to value it. Money is an abstract concept like numbers. An easy way to understand it is if I give you ten dollars, I physically hand you a ten dollar which is a promise by the government to pay the bearer $10.00. However can you tell me what a dollar is or even better actually give me one. Not a piece of paper but an actual physical dollar rather than something that represents it. Ok it is exactly the same with numbers. What is a number? Can you describe a number? Or can you give me a number rather than something that represents it? Money is the same, it is not a physical thing but an abstract concept built around the ideal that a promise will be fullfilled, and it is a convention that US$ are used in international trade for the payment of goods and services. Conventions have been known to change over time.

 

[the road runner]

How do you know that there are isn't enough gold in the world to pay for oil.

I stated that there isnt enough gold in the world to pay for all the transactions of the world.ie to pay for coal/iron ore /oil/gas/commodities all the transactions that take place daily in the world economy.The Gold Market is valued at 3 trillion dollars(depending on the daily spot price of gold)Its a small market when you take into account the world economy.

I think i have de railed the thread ,sorry was not my intention

 

[STURM]

Given the rather poor relations Iran has with a number of other countries, both within the regional and around the globe, it is possible that Iran might opt to employ a nuclear device against another country before, during or after a conflict. This could be either via a direct attack (and Iran has been attempting to improve and expand their BM arsenal...) by potentially providing a device or devices to third party proxies. -Cheers

Yes but that would be counter productive, would lead to a retaliatory strike against Iran, and would be against the main agenda of the Iranian government - regime survival. It was the Shah who first conceived the idea of having nukes as part of his plan to make Iran a regional power and alongside Israel, a Cold War strategic partner of the U.S. The mullahs when they came to power shelved the programme because it was ''un-Islamic'' and only reluctantly revived it at the urging of the military when things started to go very bad with Iraq.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmAL4SaGA0s"]The Full Story of Iran's Nuclear Program - Robert Fisk - YouTube[/nomedia]


At present, from an Iranian perspective, they are surrounded by countries who have aligned themselves with the U.S. , are worried about U.S. and Israeli hegemony in the region and are totally convinced that having a nuke will guarantee that Uncle Sam, with the support of Israel and the Sunni Gulf states have no thoughts of regime change.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYWKmQa_OJQ"]Living with a Nuclear Iran | Robert Kaplan - YouTube[/nomedia]


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLEYB4wYGzY"]Top Israeli firm says the world more likely to accept nuclear Iran than war - YouTube[/nomedia]

A third area of potential concern is that if Iran develops nuclear weaponry, even if they are/were just for use to keep the current regime in power in the face of outside threats... A nuclear armed Iran might well decide to step up its various programmes which support outside groups with weapons and kit, secure in the knowledge that if international pressure becomes too great, Iran literally has a nuclear option.

There is a greater possibility of that happening in Pakistan than in Iran. Though the Pakistani military has full control of its nukes, there is always the possibility of things getting worse in the country and ''jihadist'' elements getting hold of a nuke. Personally, I think that there is more danger and much, much greater possibility of things rapidly getting out of control between India and Pakistan - over Kashmir or something else - leading to a war and the possibility of nukes being used, than in the Middle East. In 1999, at the height of the Kargil war, Pakistan made clear that if India crossed into it's border, Pakistan was more than willing to use nukes on its own territory. And in 2002, both sides came very close to war.

Iran is already known to support non-state actors in the Mideast, and has made comments about having an 'obligation to protect members of the Shia sect' outside of Iran following the suppression of various minority groups in different Gulf states during parts of the 'Arab Spring'. Whether any of the various suppressed groups have any ethnic, religious or cultural ties to Iran or not, I do not know...-Cheers

Iran is not the only country that makes use of non-state actors to support its interests . Even before the Arab Spring, Iran has always kept a ''protective'' eye out for its Shia brethren in places like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon and Iraq. That's one reason why it supported the Northern Alliance way before 9/11 and way before 9//11 held a number of talks with the U.S. on how to contain the Taliban. In places like Karbala in Iraq, the Shiites there feel more affinity to Iran than they do with their own government and the same goes for shiites in Lebanon.

 

[Palnatoke]

Sorry, economics does not work that way. The only way that Iran’s shifting the euro or yuan can hurt the US is if their value goes up permanently relative to the dollar. There is NO WAY that it allows the Federal Reserve (Fed for short) (not FedEx, that is a shipping service) to print more money.

Look here, Oil (as well as about all other strategic ressources) are traded in US-dollars and a fair part of world currencies are linked to the US-dollar.

Now as, which is the case, the FED is printing more and more money, the currency market should dictate that the US-dollar would sink in value (more dollars to the same demand, it doesn't really do that, se below). That would normally mean that the US will have to pay more dollars for the same import (due to exchange rate). But oil is traded in US dollars and the only way that f.ex. Saudi arabia can offset a sinking dollar, is by increasing the general price of oil. But that is a tab that all economies (particularely those linked to US-dollar) pick up, not just the american.

On the other hand, if Sweden started to print money and its currency dropped vs. the dollar, oil price in swedish kroner, would increase by that factor.

One can view a fair part US-Chineese relations as the FED printing money, which ends up in the chineese treassury (in exchange for goods). Now the chineese can't use these huge amounts of dollars to buy american products (that would would create inflation in the US) but, at least in principle, it can buy oil and other rawmaterials traded in dollars. Now if these commodities weren't traded in US-dollars but say in Euros, then maybe the chineese wouldn't keep so many dollars in their coffers....

 

[My2Cents]

Look here, Oil (as well as about all other strategic ressources) are traded in US-dollars and a fair part of world currencies are linked to the US-dollar.

Now as, which is the case, the FED is printing more and more money, the currency market should dictate that the US-dollar would sink in value (more dollars to the same demand, it doesn't really do that, se below). That would normally mean that the US will have to pay more dollars for the same import (due to exchange rate). But oil is traded in US dollars and the only way that f.ex. Saudi arabia can offset a sinking dollar, is by increasing the general price of oil. But that is a tab that all economies (particularely those linked to US-dollar) pick up, not just the american.

On the other hand, if Sweden started to print money and its currency dropped vs. the dollar, oil price in swedish kroner, would increase by that factor.

One can view a fair part US-Chineese relations as the FED printing money, which ends up in the chineese treassury (in exchange for goods). Now the chineese can't use these huge amounts of dollars to buy american products (that would would create inflation in the US) but, at least in principle, it can buy oil and other rawmaterials traded in dollars. Now if these commodities weren't traded in US-dollars but say in Euros, then maybe the chineese wouldn't keep so many dollars in their coffers....

Oil, and other resources, are traded in US$ for simplicity. The value of doing so to the US is mainly prestige. But the price in US$ is NOT FIXED, but are actively traded and market value is determined by current and anticipated demand. If the value of the US$ drops the price oil and other commodities will increase to compensate, immediately if not sooner (commodity traders are a savvy lot).

If the value of the US$ drops due to inflation or a decrease in interest rates, the value of other currencies (at least those without the same problems) will rise versus the US$ by a proportional amount, so they retain the same buying power. Then when it comes time to buy those commodities the foreign currency is valued at the current value in dollars and the purchase made, there is no increase in cost to the more stable currency. The only sure loss is if you are holding US$ at the time that the value drops.

Currencies that are tied to the dollar are limited to trading in a narrow range, primarily to dampen wild swings in value caused by speculators. If they bump up against a limit for several days though that is an indication that something is wrong and the range is recalculated, or trading will stop.

As for printing money, a certain amount of growth in the money supply is required to accommodate economic growth. Otherwise when people go to purchase the additional goods and service there is nothing to buy them with. Economics dictate that when there is a surplus of something the price drops, and if there is not enough money that happens to everything at the same time and you get deflation. If there is too much money you get inflation. The exact relationship between the total economy and the money supply is referred to as the velocity of money, but that is just a measurement of something much more complicated and not well understood. Since even a little deflation tends to damage economic growth more than a moderate amount inflation, the FED tries to keep the economy slightly biased on the inflation side, as long as it can keep out of politics. Sadly this is not one of those times, as you have noted.

 

[Palnatoke]

If the value of the US$ drops the price oil and other commodities will increase to compensate, immediately if not sooner (commodity traders are a savvy lot).

No, that obviously not the case with oil.

What is the case is that if F.ex. Sweden's currency drop, then oil meassured in Swedish currency would increase to compensate (the swedes have to exchange swedish kroner to dollars to make the buy). but That's not how it is for the US dollar.

Somebody called this a conspiracy theorm, and it is, but is one of the few that got a rationale.

 

[My2Cents]

but That's not how it is for the US dollar.

Somebody called this a conspiracy theorm, and it is, but is one of the few that got a rationale.

Source please. Because it is not rational.

There are just too many people who could make a fortune exploiting the ‘middle’ this creates. It is not sustainable, even for a short while.

 

[Palnatoke]

Source please. Because it is not rational.

There are just too many people who could make a fortune exploiting the ‘middle’ this creates. It is not sustainable, even for a short while.

What do you think they do in OPEC? Drink coffee or manipulate the oil price?

Compare a US-dollar economy and a country with a different currency. When exchange rates change, it's not the same thing that happens, because the price of oil is set in dollars.

 

[Palnatoke]

@My2Cents


The conspiracy theorem that connects to this, is the one f.ex. Ron Paul has put forth in the US congress; That the dollar monopoly is maintained under the threath of war.
That's not what I am saying, that's Ron Paul.

 

[My2Cents]

@My2Cents

The conspiracy theorem that connects to this, is the one f.ex. Ron Paul has put forth in the US congress; That the dollar monopoly is maintained under the threath of war.
That's not what I am saying, that's Ron Paul.

Figures. One more reason to never vote for the idiot.

Can you imagine what would happen if he were elected president and acted based on the assumption that these fantasies of his were true?

p.s. What does f.ex. stand for. I googled it and the only translation that seemed to make sense in context was obscene, which I very much doubt is your intent.