Now You're Talking . . . to Iran! posted by Yoshie

Among all the factors impacting oil prices -- many years of underinvestment and little spare production capacity, expectations of long-term demand growth in China and other countries in the South, dollar depreciation, pension funds and others investing in commodity futures, failure to massively invest in energy conservation and renewable fuels, etc. -- the only one that is entirely and immediately under Washington's control is some of the geopolitical risk premiums that it has foolishly created itself. Most importantly, it can tell Israel to shut up, and accept nuclear Iran. Maybe even the Bush administration has finally realized that: Elaine Sciolino and Steven Lee Myers, "Policy Shift Seen in U.S. Decision on Iran Talks" (New York Times, 17 July 2008); and Ewen MacAskill, "US Plans to Station Diplomats in Iran for First Time since 1979" (Guardian, 17 July 2008).

Update

See? It's already working: "'There's been a lot of talk about what the administration would have to do to lower oil prices,' [John] Kilduff [vice president of risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York] said. 'Making a peace overture to Iran is doing the job'" (Mark Shenk, "Oil Falls for a Fourth Day as Iran Talks Ease Supply Concern," Bloomberg, 18 July 2008). Fast relief!

Be sure to communicate this message to the White House and the Congress: no peace, no oil. Make peace with Iran, whether or not it suspends uranium enrichment.

Labels: american empire, imperialism, iran, oil, stop the war

Agent Provocateur posted by bat020

"This chap wasn't really the sort you'd expect to see shouting abuse at police officers at an anti-war demo. He was, after all, a policeman himself."

Labels: george w bush, police, protest, stop the war

Israel Threatens Iran, and Oil Prices Skyrocket posted by Yoshie

We have to come up with a way of making clear to the US power elite: no, we can't afford Israel any more. Otherwise, we'll all go bankrupt. Look:

• "Oil prices had their biggest gains ever on Friday, jumping nearly $11 to a new record above $138 a barrel, after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell sharply against the euro" (Jad Mouawad, "Oil Prices Skyrocket, Taking Biggest Jump Ever," New York Times, 7 June 2008).


• "Oil prices surged almost 8 percent, to $138.54 a barrel after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell against the euro. 'As soon as that news hit the tape, oil spiked about $6,' said David Kovacs, an investment strategist at Turner Investment Partners" (Abha Bhattarai, "Dow Slides Nearly 400 Points; Oil Surges," New York Times, 7 June 2008).

Since the decades of neoliberal capitalism have led to public and private underinvestment in key industries and infrastructure, including oil, the margin of error is narrow, and we can't let the power elite of Israel make any stupid move.

If the Americans were smarter, they would be demanding that, instead of backing Israel no matter what, the USG withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (which the Iranians, the Syrians, the Turks, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Russians, and other interested parties in the region can collaboratively manage on behalf of the world) and invest the money saved ($165 billion from now through June 2009) into oil field development to cover the estimated investment shortfall ($95 billion, according to Platts). Technology to raise oil production exists -- what's lacking is the political will to transfer it, as well as money, into the right hands (i.e., the hands of those who own most existing and potential oil reserves, the national oil companies of the global South).

Meanwhile, "the unemployment rate [in the United States] in May had its highest monthly increase in 22 years" (Bhattarai, 7 June 2008). Will the Fed stick to its promise not to cut rates again any time soon and to defend the dollar? Cut the rates to revive economy,¹ and the Fed will stoke inflation and risk imperiling the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency² (of which US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson recently had to reassure the Gulf Arab ruling class³); raise the rates to attack inflation and restore confidence in the dollar, and the Fed will risk plunging economy into a depression.

1 More fundamentally, cutting the rates, i.e., treating the credit crisis as if it were a crisis of liquidity, doesn't touch the heart of the financial darkness: banks' inability to trust each other (cf. Joseph Halevi, "Los bancos centrales ya no tienen margen de maniobra. . . ," Sin Permiso, 30 December 2007). Hence the crisis continues: "Banking Group Won't Change Way Libor Measure Is Set" (Bloomberg News, 30 May 2008); Michael Mackenzie and Gillian Tett, "Libor Remarks Fail to Put Unease to Rest" (Financial Times, 2 June 2008); Tony Jackson, "Lack of Trust Lurks at the Heart of Banking Trouble" (Financial Times, 2 June 2008); Sean Farrell, "The Next Banking Crisis?" (Independent, 3 June 2008); "Why Interest Rates Are Higher than You Think" (Money Week, 5 June 2006).

2 The European Central Bank has been more hawkish on inflation than the Federal Reserve. There is no coherent international policy on inflation and economic growth, even among the power elites of the US-led multinational empire, which makes it difficult for the Fed to perform its balancing act.

Moreover, a great part of the recent oil price rises has been due to the dollar's weakness. Those oil producers, like the Gulf states, whose currencies are pegged to the dollar (but most of whose imports come from Europe), are thus forced to adopt a pro-cyclical policy against their interests. Bretton Woods II has ceased to make sense even on capitalist terms (to say nothing of the social costs to the South of accumulating dollar reserves and financing the US economy at the expense of domestic investment).

3 See how crucial petrodollar recycling has become to plug the US current account deficit:

As a result of the recent rise in oil prices, oil exporters have become important counterparts to the United States in the ownership of foreign savings. Their current account surplus represented in 2005 some 40 percent of the U.S. current account deficit, nearly doubling in one year (Chart 2).

Chart 2
Current Account Positions
(in billions of US$)

¹Ratio of current account of oil exporters to current account of the United States (in percent, right axis).

Oil exporters are close to becoming more important than Asia in the holding of net savings outside the United States (Chart 3). While Asia's current account surplus is projected to have risen to US$341 billion in 2005 (equivalent to 47 percent of the United States' current account deficit), that of oil exporters is projected to have reached US$296 billion (equivalent to 41 percent of the United States' current account deficit). Relative positions are expected to reverse in 2006. According to IMF projections, oil exporters' current account surplus would amount to 46 percent of the U.S. deficit in 2006, while the figure for Asia would drop to 41 percent.

Chart 3
Foreign Savings
(Current account surplus, US$ billion)

(Saleh M. Nsouli, Director, Offices in Europe, International Monetary Fund, "Petrodollar Recycling and Global Imbalances," Presentation at the CESifo's International Spring Conference, Berlin, 23-24 March 2006)

Labels: empire, iran, Israel, oil, ruling class, stop the war

Iraq mortality studies posted by Richard Seymour

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has published an article and study [pdf] indicating that, as of June 2006, 151,000 Iraqis had suffered violent deaths since March 2003. The figures come from the Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS), a body composed by employees of the Iraqi health ministry. It is the same team that carried out the UNDP's 2004 Iraq Living Conditions Survey. No one can fail to miss the way in which the response to this survey differs from that to the Lancet study. In the latter case, universal scorn from the British and American political classes, despite the MoD's top scientist endorsing its scientific rigour. In this case, the hallelujahs could not be louder, not because the media actually give a fuck whether it is true or not, but because they can - well, they can defend the murder of 151,000 people more easily than they can defend the murder of 600,000 or 1.2 million.

Les Roberts, a co-author of the two Lancet surveys, has offered his response here. Aside from pointing out where the surveys converge or at least bear similarities, Roberts suggests that the same body has previously drastically underestimated deaths with the result that on interviewing the same batch of households for the second time, the total child mortality rate was double their reported deaths in the previous visit. Their reported death rate for immediately before and after the invasion is much lower than that for 2002 (this is not a survey of excess deaths, so the implication is that underreporting in 2003 would lead one to expect further underreporting in 2004, 2005 and 2006). So, "the past record suggests people do not want to report deaths to these government employees."

One point of serious divergence with the 2006 Lancet survey is that this study attributes over 50% of the deaths to Baghdad and only around 30% to "High-Mortality Provinces". The Lancet survey attributed about 20% of the violent deaths to Baghdad and over 60% to those "High-Mortality Provinces". One reason for this appears to be that of the clusters they could not visit due to "security" problems (bombing and shit), 61.7% were in Anbar. Thus, to make up for it, they calibrated the figures according to the Iraq Body Count database - the database that, as we all know, is compiled from media reports, which of course are themselves blind to huge parts of the country due in part to "security" risks. Further, it is not even based on all media reports of deaths: about one in four stories in the major US press alone have been missed by the IBC's survey according to one review (cited by Roberts and Burnham). Thus, their distribution of 'reported' deaths is very much like IBC's. This distribution is counterintuitive since the largest US military operations have been conducted in towns and cities in the 'Sunni Triangle' such as Fallujah, Ramadi, Haditha and al-Qaim - all in the Anbar province. The biggest operations, such as Operation Phantom Fury, were focused in Anbar. The fiercest resistnace to the US has been based in Anbar, with the province accounting for the largest portion of attacks of all kinds in each of the three years covered.

Still, those are issues that would theoretically be resolved through debate and the input of others in the know. That isn't going to happen. Whatever the intentions of the ministry of health workers who carried out this study, its findings are now out of their hands. It is now a weapon for neutralising the findings of the Lancet survey, as per this. After all, even the real terms of the survey itself hardly matter. As Eli points out, the total mortality noted by this survey, whatever its flaws, would actually mean there were about four times as many deaths as are now being to be reported, because of the emphasis on strictly violent deaths. Back in the day, they didn't do body counts. Now, they do it perforce by way of exonerating themselves.

Labels: iraq, lancet study, stop the war

Maradona Loves Iran posted by Yoshie

A gift of love from the god of football to the people of Iran: Diego Maradona says, "Estoy con los iraníes de todo corazón, de verdad lo digo, lo digo porque lo siento y estoy con el pueblo de Irán [I'm with the Iranians, with all my heart. I mean it. I say it because I feel it. I stand with the people of Iran]," presenting Iran's charge d'affaires in Argentina Mohsen Baharvand with his token of love for Iran, a shirt that he autographed "Con todo mi cariño para el pueblo de Irán [With all my love for the people of Iran]" ("Con todo cariño," Olé, 24 December 2007).

Maradona's Message to the People of Iran

El Diez's shirt will be on display in the museum of gifts at Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no doubt to the delight of his fans in Iran.

Eduardo Galeano said of Maradona: for many years he committed "el pecado de ser el mejor, el delito de denunciar a viva voz las cosas que el poder manda callar y el crimen de jugar con la zurda, lo cual, según el Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado, significa 'con la izquierda' y también significa 'al contrario de cómo se debe hacer' [the sin of being the best, the offense of loudly condemning the things that the powerful ordered silenced, and the crime of playing left-handed, which, according to The Little Illustrated Larousse, means being 'with the Left' and also means being 'contrary to what we are supposed to do']" (El Fútbol a sol y sombra, 1995). The man-child is still playing left-handed, after all these years.

Labels: iran, stop the war

American Jews Oppose Military Action against Iran posted by Yoshie

This just in: American Jews are opposed to any military attack on Iran, by a large margin, according to the American Jewish Committee's 2007 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion (6-25 November 2007).

7. Would you support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons?
Support	35
Oppose	57
Not Sure	8

The rest of the survey is just as good.

No, this doesn't surprise us: the fact obscured by both the Israel lobby and some of its most foolish critics is that, after all these years, Jewish Americans still largely lean to the Left, thinking more like oppressed Blacks than privileged whites, and adjusted for income differences (lower incomes tend to correlate with more progressive opinions on foreign policy as well as economics), Jewish Americans are probably the most progressive group in the USA; and that neo-conservatives are a tiny minority at odds with a great majority of Jewish Americans they claim to represent (Glenn Greenwald, "New Poll Reveals How Unrepresentative Neocon Jewish Groups Are," Salon.com, 12 December 2007). Now, isn't it great to have what we know confirmed by the American Jewish Committee again?

Update

"Two-Thirds of Israelis Oppose Attack on Iran: Poll" (Agence France Presse, 6 December 2007). (Thanks, Pauly!) Take that, neo-cons!

Labels: iran, Israel, stop the war, US imperialism, us politics

Hands on the People of Iran posted by Yoshie

There is an organization in the United Kingdom that calls itself "Hands Off the People of Iran," an organization created in sectarian competition with the larger, more established Stop the War Coalition and the UK branch of the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran.

HOPOI declares in its founding statement: "We want regime change -- both in Iran and in the imperialist countries."¹ But the means it advocates in its bombastic slogans show that it promotes "regime change" only in Iran.

Why do I know that? Because HOPOI, in the same statement, calls for "[s]upport to all working class and progressive struggles in Iran against poverty and repression" and "[s]upport for socialism, democracy and workers' control in Iran," but not in the imperialist countries.

Perhaps the organization ought to change its name to "Hands on the People of Iran." After all, its approach to the domestic politics of Iran is very hands-on.

1 BTW, I thought that communists, like most of HOPOI's main organizational backers, wanted social revolution, not mere "regime change." O Tempora! O Mores!

Labels: imperialism, iran, socialism, stop the war

Ban Broke: demo report posted by Richard Seymour

As I said, we broke the ban. Apparently, they reversed their ban an hour before the demo was scheduled to begin. Tony Benn was announcing it to no particular surprise but much satisfaction when I arrived. I think this is quite important in itself. Had there been only a few dozen there, the ban would probably have remained in force and the demo would have been confined to Trafalgar Square. The turnout, though probably in the low thousands, was fantastic for a Monday afternoon. I remember when it would have been an achievement to get twelve people out at such a time. Plenty of young people and students there, and I even met one incorrigible lecturer who had got thirty students to come along. Even with all that, the demo was incredibly over-policed, and they even kept the traffic flowing round Parliament Square, which meant that the demo had to be fed through in small blocs every time the traffic stopped for a red light. How ridiculous. There were some particularly good speeches from George Galloway, Ben Griffin, Lindsey German, Mark Steel and Mark Thomas, which I filmed and will be uploaded as fast as Google Video can do its work. In the meantime, here are some pictures.







Here is the first of the footage, speeches by Mark Steel & Ben Griffin, plus protest shots:









Here is Galloway, Mark Thomas & Lindsey German:

Labels: afghanistan, iran, iraq, stop the war, US imperialism

Break the ban: stop war on Iran posted by Richard Seymour

I assume you all know by now that Gordon Brown has banned our Stop the War march to Parliament on Monday 8th, using legislation from 1839 to ensure that MPs wouldn't be attacked by grubby oiks. Well, you also probably have heard that the Stop the War Coalition is defying the ban. The importance of this can't be stressed enough: Tony Benn has openly stated that he intends to march down to parliament regardless of what the police do; he will be accompanied by Galloway, Mark Thomas, Ben Griffin and of course thousands of us, with placards and banners a-plenty. And you have to be there. This is an exercise in mass civil disobedience that will, if Brown doesn't back down, create a serious crisis for him. He sent out signals when he took power that he would be different: that civil liberties would be under less attack; that the right to protest around parliament would be restored. Now he's trying to backtrack - and why? Because while the government has pulled way ahead of the Tories - and that's a good thing - New Labour remains weak on Iraq. It is the key issue in British politics today, and the issue on which the government is least popular, is the continued involvement in the 'war on terror'. And there happens to be an election coming up in November. Well, suppose I'm right, and that is the reasoning behind banning the protest - it's a massive fuck-up, and we need to make sure the government pays fully for it.

Brown is making very slow, half-hearted gestures toward withdrawal from southern Iraq. But he is also dedicated to escalating the increasingly ruthless war in Afghanistan. And, as we now know, he supports an attack on Iran. It won't be an all-out assault, if it happens: it will be a series of bombing raids, designed to humiliate and weaken the Iranian president by proving that he cannot defend his people and stop them from being killed. It will be, to put it another way, an elaborate punishment beating. Don't think this can't work: it can work. It has worked in the past. And we can't afford to underestimate the seriousness of this. If they get away with attacking Iran, they have already recouped some of the losses inflicted on them by the opposition in both Iraq and Afghanistan, who - we now have General Sir Richard Dannatt's word for it - are largely ordinary people defending themselves. We have to clobber the government on the war before it decides to expand it. And if they do decide to attack Iran, there won't be a build-up: it'll be a very sudden onslaught. So, we have to prepare our actions in advance. You could always pledge civil disobedience in the event of war. That's what we need to do: not a token one-off gesture, because that won't work, but a sustained campaign of interrupting the daily processes of life in this country if they decide to go on another murdering spree.

Make a note of the details: assemble at Trafalgar Square, Monday 8 October, 1pm. Throw a sickie at work, bunk off school, do what you have to do. And I'll see you there.

Labels: gordon brown, iran, stop the war