by Dr. Ellen Hodgson Brown
Global Research
12 Jan 2008
In the latest escalation of tensions with Iran, on January 5, 2008 five
Iranian patrol boats surrounded three U.S. ships in the Strait of
Hormuz, coming within a "threatening" 200 meters. A voice with a thick
accent then said in English, "I am coming at you -- you will explode in a
couple of minutes." The U.S. ships prepared to strike, when the patrol
boats backed off. That is how the Pentagon told it, but Iranians have
questioned where the threatening voice came from, and Pentagon officials
have admitted that they could not confirm that it came directly from the
Iranian crews involved. They have also admitted that the voice and the
video film were recorded separately, adding to the mysterious
circumstances. 1
Skeptical observers might think that the two countries were being goaded
into World War III -- either that, or that someone wanted to convince
American viewers that Iran indeed remained a threat, despite a recent
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that the country is not
engaged in a nuclear weapons program as formerly alleged. Before
President George W. Bush left for his Middle East visit on January 8, he
told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, "Part of the reason I'm going
to the Middle East is to make it abundantly clear to nations in that
part of the world that we view Iran as a threat, and that the NIE in no
way lessens that threat." 2 Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said in a recent MSNBC
news broadcast that there is still a "great possibility" of nuclear
action against Iran. The target has just shifted from nuclear power
plants to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has been declared a
terrorist organization. Paul said, "[T]here are still quite a few
neoconservatives who want to go after Iran under these unbelievable
conditions." 3
The question is, why? One popular theory holds that the push for war is
all about oil; but many countries have oil, and we don't normally invade
them to get their assets. Why go to war for Iran's oil when we can just
buy it?
Another theory says that the saber-rattling is about defending the
dollar. Iran is threatening to open its own oil bourse, and it is
already selling most of its oil in non-dollar currencies. Iran has
broken the petrodollar stranglehold imposed in the 1970s, when OPEC
entered into an agreement with the United States to sell oil only in
U.S. dollars.4 But as William Engdahl pointed out in a March 2006
editorial, Iran is not alone in wanting to drop the dollar as its oil
currency; and war with Iran has been in the cards as part of the U.S.
Greater Middle East strategy since the 1990s, long before it threatened
to open its own oil bourse. 5
The Greater Middle East strategy
. . . Could the published plans for that program hold some clues? Iran
was targeted in the infamous policy paper titled "Rebuilding America's
Defenses," published by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in
2000. The document was patterned from an earlier blueprint called "A
Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," drafted for Israeli
Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996. 6 In a May 2005 summary of the PNAC
directive, Professor Michel Chossudovsky described PNAC as a
neo-conservative think tank linked to the Defense-Intelligence
establishment, the Republican Party and the powerful Council on Foreign
Relations (CFR), which plays an important role in the formulation of
U.S. foreign policy. In "Rebuilding America's Defenses," PNAC called for
"the direct imposition of U.S. 'forward bases' throughout Central Asia
and the Middle East, with a view to ensuring economic domination of the
world, while strangling any potential 'rival' or any viable alternative
to America's vision of a 'free market' economy." 7
Strangling any potential rival or viable alternative to America's vision
of a free market economy
. . . Could that be it? It is a matter of historical interest that the
notion of a "free market" economy hasn't always been "America's vision."
In the nineteenth century, "free trade" was something many Americans
resisted. They saw it as a British scheme to exploit America of its
resources, at a time when British bankers had a corner on the gold that
was the exclusive coin of international trade. When the gold standard
was abandoned in 1971, the U.S. dollar became the world's reserve
currency in its stead. Many disillusioned people in developing countries
today suspect that America's global "free market" is another form of
exploitation -- prying countries open to be plundered of their physical
and human resources in return for loans of the dollars necessary to buy
oil at inflated prices. Oil is the bait for ensnaring the world in the
debt trap, and the terrorism that must be suppressed is the rebellion of
any locals who will not be ensnared quietly. The weapon in this economic
war is debt, and the bullets are compound interest.
The story has been widely circulated that when Albert Einstein was asked
what the most powerful force in the universe was, he replied, "compound
interest." The story is probably apocryphal, but it underscores the
force of the concept. Compound interest has allowed a private global
banking cartel to control most of the resources of the world. The debt
trap was set in 1974, when OPEC was induced to trade its oil only in
U.S. dollars. The price of oil then suddenly quadrupled, and countries
with insufficient dollars for their oil needs had to borrow them. In
1980, international interest rates shot up to 20 percent. At 20 percent
interest compounded annually, $100 doubles in under 4 years; and in 20
years, it becomes a breathtaking $3,834. 8 The impact on Third World
debtors was devastating. President Obasanjo of Nigeria complained in 2000:
All that we had borrowed up to 1985 was around $5 billion, and we have
paid about $16 billion; yet we are still being told that we owe about
$28 billion. That $28 billion came about because of the injustice in the
foreign creditors' interest rates. If you ask me what is the worst thing
in the world, I will say it is compound interest. 9
Could the "viable economic alternative" that threatens the Western
economic model be one that declares the collecting of interest to be
illegal? That is the model Iran is now holding out to the world. In
1979, Iran was established as an "Islamic Republic," designed to enforce
the principles of the Koran not just morally or religiously but as a
matter of state government policy. Afghanistan, which is also in the
cross-hairs of the U.S. war machine, and Pakistan, which the U.S. is
trying hard to control, are also Islamic Republics. The economic
principles of the Koran include Sharia banking, which forbids "usury."
In the Koran, usury is defined as charging not just excess interest but
any interest.
That is also how the term was defined under Old English law until
Protestant scholars redefined it in the seventeenth century, opening the
Christian world to a form of economic advantage formerly available only
to Jewish money lenders. In Jewish scriptures, charging interest was
forbidden between "brothers" but was allowed in dealings with
"foreigners." (See, for example, Deuteronomy 23:19, "You must not make
your brother pay interest," and 23:20, "You may make
a foreigner pay interest, but your brother you must not make pay
interest.") This point is raised here not to indict the Jewish people
(who are not the "global bankers") but for its historical relevance in
tracking the divergence of two religious systems. Charging interest on
loans has been accepted banking practice throughout the Judao-Christian
world for so long that we don't think there is anything wrong with it
today, but that hasn't always been true. The history of interest is
detailed in an article in The World Guide Encyclopedia, which is
published in Uruguay and has a Third World/Islamic slant. It states:
The practice of usury -- lending money and accumulating interest on the
loan -- can be traced back 4,000 years. But it has always been despised,
condemned, restricted or banned by moral, ethical, legal or religious
entities. . . .
During the prophet Muhammad's lifetime, criticism of usury became
established. This stance was reinforced by his teachings in the Qur'an,
around 600 AD. . . .
Judaism's criticisms of usury are rooted in several passages of the Old
Testament in which charging interest is scorned, discouraged and
prohibited. . . . [I]n Deuteronomy, [the ban] extends to all loans,
excluding trade with foreigners. The word "foreigner" is interpreted in
general as "enemy" and, armed with this text, Jews employed usury as a
weapon, as other people's needs could be transformed into submission. . . .
The prohibition of usury was adopted as a major campaign by the earliest
Christian Church, following on from Jesus' expulsion of the
money-lenders from the temple. . . . [T]he Catholic Church of the 4th
century AD banned the clergy from charging interest, a rule that was
later extended in the 5th century to the laity. . . .
[A]round 1620, according to the theologian Ruston, "usury passed from
being an offense against public morality, which a Christian government
was expected to suppress, to being a matter of private conscience, and a
new generation of Christian moralists redefined usury as excessive
interest". . . . [I]t is interesting to contrast the clear moral mandate
expressed through Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (634-644 AD) about
"ravenous usury" as "a demon condemned by the Church but practiced in a
deceitful way by avaricious men," with Pope John Paul II's encyclical
Solicitude Rei Socialis (1987) which omits any explicit mention of
usury, except for a vague reference to recognizing the Third World debt
crisis.
This "demon" governs current global relations, condemning most of the
world population to living under the sign of debt: i.e., each person
born in Latin America owes already $1,600 in foreign debt; each
individual being conceived in Sub-Saharan Africa carries the burden of a
$336 debt, for something that its ancestors have long ago paid-off. In
1980 the Southern countries' debt amounted to $567 billion; since then,
they have paid $3,450 billion in interest and write-offs, six times the
original amount. In spite of this, that debt had quadrupled by the year
2000, reaching $2,070 billion. 10
Islamic scholars have been seeking to devise a global banking system
that would serve as an alternative to the interest-based scheme that is
in control of the world economy, and Iran has led the way in devising
that model. Iran was able to escape the debt trap that captured other
developing countries because it had its own oil. Few Islamic banks
existed before Iran became an Islamic Republic in 1979, but the concept
is now spreading globally. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989,
the viable economic model that threatens the global dominance of the
Western banking clique may no longer be Communism. It may be the specter
of an Islamic banking system that would strip a private banking cartel
of the compound interest scheme that is its most powerful economic weapon.
President Bush assured allies before his Mideast trip, "It's important
for the people in the region to know that while all options remain on
the table, that I believe we can solve this problem diplomatically, and
the way to do that is to continue to isolate Iran in the international
community." 11 Isolate Iran from whom? Isolation is something that is
done to prevent contagion. The contagion to be contained may be the
creation of an Islamic State pursuing the principles of Sharia law,
something that is now the rallying cry for many Muslims around the world.
Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney
practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest
book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and
"the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped the
power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people
can get it back. Her eleven books include the bestselling Nature's
Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000
copies. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.
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