In
the great global political and economic chess
game, the US pieces have mounted a seemingly
irresistible attack, but while Iran's position
appears hopeless, the game is not yet lost.
The economic situation in Iran is at
melting point, and the key constituency of the
"bazaari" merchants and businesses - whose support
was instrumental in Mahmud Ahmadinejad's ascension
to the presidency - have now almost completely
abandoned him.
The speaker of Iran's
Majlis (parliament), Ali Larijani, who is a scion
of a very influential family, is reportedly in the
religious center of Qom to gather support among
clerics, which could assist in swinging the
Supreme Leader behind a more pragmatic approach to
nuclear negotiations. As Larijani lobbies support,
one of his influential brothers has been
threatened with criminal
proceedings by the
presidential faction.
There is speculation
in Tehran that the wily and pragmatic former
president Akbar Hashem Rafsanjani will shortly -
at the Eid-ul-Fitr celebration of the end of
Ramadan later this month - be mandated by the
Supreme Leader to negotiate a solution to Iran's
nuclear problems.
Rafsanjani's star has
been rising as rapidly as President Ahmadinejad's
is descending. So on the one hand, we have seen
Rafsanjani being restored to a more influential
role as head of Iran's Expediency Council, which
is one of three key Iranian political
institutions. On the other hand, we see death
sentences for a multi-billion dollar banking fraud
being handed out to individuals associated with
factions in the presidential camp.
If
Rafsanjani - or anyone else - is indeed to be
given the authority to make major concessions to
address the nuclear demands made by the P5+1 - the
United Nations Security Council permanent five
members plus Germany - then the result could be
extremely interesting.
Painted into a
corner The US has painted itself into a
corner. President Barack Obama is in no position
to agree any concessions before the US
presidential elections in November, and indeed
both he and congress are bent on introducing
further sanctions as though the existing sanctions
have had no effect (this week he announced new
sanctions against foreign banks that help Iran
sell its oil). This is political overkill of the
highest order.
The new US president will
find concessions politically difficult against the
entrenched power of the Israel lobby, while a
president set on regime change - and Republican
candidate Mitt Romney at least appears to meet
that description judging by his recent performance
in Israel - would marginalise the US completely.
However, not only could Iranian nuclear
concessions address Russian and Chinese concerns,
but they may also put the European Union's
negotiators in a very difficult position.
The special
relationship "England has no eternal
friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England
has only eternal and perpetual interests." - Lord
Palmerston (1848)
As with England then, so
with the US now: the US has no friends: it only
has interests. Foremost of these is US energy
security, and second is the continued hegemony of
deficit-based US dollar currency created without
limit by the US banking system.
When the
UK and quite a few who should know better in the
EU do the US' bidding, their excuse is that they
have some kind of "special relationship" with the
US. Unfortunately for them, Palmerston's imperious
comments apply to the US today as much as they did
to England over 150 years ago.
The
completely base-less, bank-centric and
unsustainable euro currency is now in its death
throes, with the weakest economies being
systematically isolated and attacked - as a hyena
picks off the feeblest of the herd - by US and UK
financial institutions. It is a source of constant
amazement to me that the EU leadership looks
westwards to the desperately troubled US economy
for support, rather than to the East.
Sacrificing the queen So the
question to be asked of the EU could be whether
they are prepared to join a Eurasian framework for
political and economic co-operation largely based
upon energy and trade, or would prefer to cling to
a failing and dysfunctional deficit-based economic
framework based upon purely financial dollar
claims created by the banking system.
The
question is whether Iran's sacrifice of their
nuclear energy queen might force the US dollar
king to lose the game.
This game's clock
is running, with Iran's next move - according to
Tehran gossip - to be at a P5+1 meeting in
Beijing.
Chris Cook is a former
director of the International Petroleum Exchange.
He is now a strategic market consultant,
entrepreneur and commentator.
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