The Economic Risks of Trump's Reckless Assassination
January 6, 2020 . 9 Comments
If Tehran ever decided to shut down the Strait of Hormuz it would trigger a
global depression, writes Pepe Escobar.
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
The bombshell facts were delivered by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adil
Abdul-Mahdi, during an extraordinary, historic parliamentary session in
Baghdad on Sunday.
Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier
flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to
deliver, in person, a reply to a message from Riyadh on de-escalation across
the Middle East. Those negotiations had been requested by the Trump
administration.
So, Baghdad was officially mediating between Tehran and Riyadh, at the
behest of Trump. And Soleimani was a messenger. Adil Abdul-Mahdi was
supposed to meet Soleimani at 8:30 am, Baghdad time, last Friday. But a few
hours before the appointed time, Soleimani died as the object of a targeted
assassination at Baghdad airport.
Let that sink in - for the annals of 21stcentury diplomacy. Once again: it
does not matter whether the assassination order was issued by President
Donald Trump, the U.S. Deep State or the usual suspects - or when. After
all, the Pentagon had Soleimani in its sights for a long time, but always
refused to go for the final hit, fearing devastating consequences.
Speaker of Iraqi Parliament concluding Jan. 5 vote on expelling U.S. troops.
(YouTube still)
Now, the fact is that the United States government - on foreign soil, as a
guest nation - has assassinated a diplomatic envoy who was on an official
mission that had been requested by the United States government itself.
Baghdad will formally denounce this behavior to the United Nations. However,
it would be idle to expect UN outrage about the U.S. killing of a diplomatic
envoy. International law was dead even before 2003's Shock and Awe.
Mahdi Army is Back
Under these circumstances, it's no wonder the Iraqi Parliament approved a
non-binding resolution asking the Iraqi government to expel foreign troops
by cancelling a request for military assistance from the U.S.
Translation: Yankee go home.
Predictably, Yankee will refuse the demand. Trump: "If they do ask us to
leave, if we don't do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them
sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions
look somewhat tame."
U.S. troops already are set to remain in Syria illegally - to "take care of
the oil." Iraq, with its extraordinary energy reserves, is an even more
serious case. Leaving Iraq means Trump, U.S. neocons and the Deep State lose
control, directly and indirectly, of the oil for good. And, most of all,
lose the possibility of endless interfering against the Axis of Resistance -
Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah.
Apart from the Kurds - bought and paid for - Iraqis all across the political
spectrum are tuned in to public opinion: this occupation is over. That
includes Muqtada al-Sadr, who reactivated the Mahdi Army and wants the U.S.
embassy shut down for good.
As I saw it live at the time, the Mahdi Army was the Pentagon's nemesis,
especially around 2003-04. The only reason the Mahdi Army were appeased was
because Washington offered Sadr Saddam Hussein, the man who killed his
father, for summary execution without trial. For all his political
inconsistencies, Sadr is immensely popular in Iraq.
Soleimani Psyop
Hezbollah's secretary-general Sayyed Nasrallah, in a very detailed speech,
goes to the jugular on the meaning of Soleimani's assassination.
Nasrallah tells how the U.S. identified the strategic role of Soleimani in
every battlefield - Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran. He
tells how Israel saw Soleimani as an "existential threat" but "dared not to
kill him. They could have killed him in Syria, where his movements were
public."
So, the decision to assassinate Soleimani in public, as Nasrallah reads it,
was a psyop. And the "fair retribution" is "ending the American military
presence in our region." All U.S. military personnel will be kept on their
toes, watching their backs, full time. This has nothing to do with American
citizens: "I'm not talking about picking on them, and picking on them is
forbidden to us."
With a single stroke, the assassination of Soleimani has managed to unite
not only Iraqis but Iranians, and in fact the whole Axis of Resistance. On
myriad levels, Soleimani could be described as the 21st century Persian Che
Guevara: the Americans have made sure he's metastasizing into the Muslim
Resistance Che.
Chokepoint: The Strait of Hormuz. (Flickr)
Oil War
No tsunami of pedestrian U.S. mainstream media PR will be able to disguise a
massive strategic blunder - not to mention yet another blatantly illegal
targeted assassination.
Yet this might as well have been a purposeful blunder. Killing Soleimani
does prove that Trump, the Deep State and the usual suspects all agree on
the essentials: there can be no entente cordiale between Saudi Arabia and
Iran. Divide and rule remains the norm.
Michael Hudson sheds light on what is in effect a protracted "democratic"
oil war:
"The assassination was intended to escalate America's presence in Iraq to
keep control of the region's oil reserves, and to back Saudi Arabia's
Wahhabi troops (Isis, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other divisions of what
are actually America's foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near
Eastern oil as a buttress of the U.S. dollar. That remains the key to
understanding this policy, and why it is in the process of escalating, not
dying down."
Neither Trump nor the Deep State could not fail to notice that Soleimani was
the key strategic asset for Iraq to eventually assert control of its oil
wealth, while progressively defeating the Wahhabi/Salafist/jihadi galaxy. So
he had to go.
'Nuclear Option'
For all the rumble surrounding Iraqi commitment to expel U.S. troops and the
Iranian pledge to react to the Soleimani assassination at a time of its
choosing, there's no way to make the imperial masters listen without a
financial hit.
Enter the world derivatives market, which every major player knows is a
financial WMD.
The derivatives are used to drain a trillion dollars a year out of the
market in manipulated profits. These profits, of course, are protected under
the "too big to prosecute" doctrine.
It's all obviously parasitic and illegal. The beauty is it can be turned
into a nuclear option against the imperial masters.
I've written extensively about it. New York connections told me the columns
all landed on Trump's desk. Obviously, he does not read anything - but the
message was there, and also delivered in person.
This past Friday, two American, mid-range, traditional funds bit the dust
because they were leveraging in derivatives linked to oil prices.
If Tehran ever decided to shut down the Strait of Hormuz - call it the
nuclear option - that would trigger a world depression as trillions of
dollars of derivatives imploded.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) counts about $600 billion in
total derivatives. Not really. Swiss sources say there are at least 1.2
quadrillion with some placing it at 2.5 quadrillion. That would imply a
derivatives market 28 times the world's GDP.
On Hormuz, the shortage of 22 percent of the world oil supply simply could
not be papered over. It would detonate a collapse and cause a market crash
infinitely worse than 1933 Weimar Germany.
The Pentagon gamed every possible scenario of a war on Iran - and the
results are grim. Sound generals - yes, there are some - know the U.S. Navy
would not be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open: it would have to leave
immediately or, as sitting ducks, face total annihilation.
So, Trump threatening to destroy 52 Iranian sites - including priceless
cultural heritage - is a bluff. Worse: this is the stuff of bragging by an
ISIS-worthy barbarian. The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. ISIS
nearly destroyed Palmyra. Trump Bakr al-Mar-a-Lago wants to join in as the
destroyer of Persian culture.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large
for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is "2030." Follow him on
Facebook.
