Why Is Iran Still in the Cross-Hairs?
Clues from the Project for a New American Century
by Dr. Ellen Hodgson Brown
Global Research, January 12, 2008
webofdebt.com
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.
1 Laurent Lozano, "During Mideast Tour, Bush to
Insist Iran Remains
a Threat," Yahoo! News (January 7, 2008).
2 David Edwards et al., "Paul: We're Getting Ready
to Bomb Iran,"
www.therawstory.com (December 27, 2007),
citing MSNBC's "Morning Joe,"
December 27, 2007.
3 Krassimir Petrov, "The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse,"
www.gold-eagle.com (January 15, 2006).
4 William Engdahl, "Why Iran's Oil Bourse
Can't Break the Buck,"
Asia Times Online (March 10, 2006).
5 Bette Stockbauer, "Rebuilding America's
Defenses: A Summary,"
Information Clearing House (May 6, 2003);
Jim Lobe, et al., "The Rise
and Decline of the Neoconservatives,"
International Relations Center,
Right Web (November 17, 2006).
6 Michel Chossudovsky, "Iran: Next
Target of Military Aggression,"
www.globalresearch.ca (May 2005).
7 "Compound Interest Week,"
www.lazymanandmoney.com; Fido Compound
Investment Tool Kit, www.fido.asic.gov.au.
8 Rodney Shakespeare, The Modern Universal Paradigm
(2007), pages 63-64.
9 "The Morals of Money-Lending,"
The World Guide, www.henciclopedia.org.
10 L. Lozano, op. cit.
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.
""I believe there are more instances of the abridgement
of freedom of the people by
gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than
by violent and sudden
usurpations. ... The means of defense against foreign
danger historically have become
the instruments of tyranny at home...If tyranny and
oppression come to this land, it
will be under the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
President James Madison
Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony on
Operation Gladio in Europe: "You had
to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent
people, unknown people far
removed from any political game. The reason was quite
simple: to force ... the public to
turn to the state to ask for greater security."
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga: "
[Bin Laden supposedly confessed] to the
Qaeda September [attack] to the two towers in
New York [claiming to be] the author of
the attack of the 11, while all the [intelligence services]
of America and Europe ...
now know well that the disastrous attack has been planned
and realized from the CIA
American and the Mossad with the aid of the Zionist world
in order to put under
accusation the Arabic Countries and in order to induce
the western powers to take part
... in Iraq [and] Afghanistan."
"We annually spend on military security more than
the net income of all United States
corporations. This conjunction of an immense
military establishment and a large arms
industry is new in the American experience.
The total influence -- economic, political,
even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every
State house, every office of the Federal
government. We recognize the imperative
need for this development. Yet we must not fail
to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil,
resources and livelihood are all
involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we
must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for
the disastrous rise of misplaced
power exists and will persist. We must never let
the weight of this combination endanger
our liberties or democratic processes." President
Dwight D. Eisenhower in a televised
speech 1961
John Swinton New York journalist at a banquet
(1880's): "What folly is this, toasting an
independent press? There is no such thing, at
this date of the World's history, in
America, as an independent press. You know it
and I know it. There is not one of you who
dares to write your honest opinions, and if you
did, you know beforehand that it would
never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping
my honest opinion out of the paper I
am connected with. Others of you are paid similar
salaries for similar things, and any
of you who would be so foolish as to write honest
opinions would be out on the streets
looking for another job. If I allowed my honest
opinions to appear in one issue of my
paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation
would be gone. The business of the
journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright,
to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at
the feet of Mammon [Biblical ref.], and to sell his
country and his race for his daily
bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly
is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of "rich men"
[Biblical ref.] behind the scenes. We are the
jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance.
Our talents, our possibilities and
our lives are all the property of other men.
We are intellectual prostitutes."
Past CIA Director William Colby: "
The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any
significance in the major media."
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face
with a conspiracy so monstrous he
cannot believe it exists". -- J. Edgar Hoover,
FBI Director 1924-1972, quoted in The
Elks Magazine (August 1956). "It is the duty
of the patriot to protect his country from
its [corrupt feudal] government." -- Thomas Paine.
"Each of you, for himself, by himself
and on his own responsibility, must speak".
-- Mark Twain. "The money powers prey upon
the nation in times of peace and conspire against
it in times of adversity. It is more
despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than
autocracy, and more selfish than
bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies all
who question its methods or throw light
upon its crimes. I have two great enemies,
the Southern Army in front of me and the
bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my
rear is my greatest foe." -- President
Abraham Lincoln. "In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth is a revolutionary
act." -- George Orwell.
"It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison,
and yet not free - to be under
no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological
captive, compelled to think, feel
and act as the representatives of the national state,
or of some private interest within
the nation, wants him to think, feel and act.
"The nature of psychological compulsion is
such that those who act under constraint remain
under the impression that they are
acting on their own initiative. The victim of
mind-manipulation does not know that he is
a victim. To him the walls of his prison are
invisible, and he believes himself to be
free. That he is not free is apparent only to
other people. His servitude is strictly
objective." Brave New World Revisited,
Aldous Huxley, 1958
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance
~ it is the illusion of knowledge."
~ Daniel Boorstin .[this is the illusion that the
mainstream news media projects to the
sheeple]
"Zionism is but an incident of a far reaching plan,"
said leading American Zionist Louis
Marshall, counsel for bankers Kuhn Loeb in 1917.
"It is merely a convenient peg on which
to hang a powerful weapon." The far-reaching plan
is Illuminati world dictatorship. The
Illuminati is the highest echelon of Freemasonry,
an occult secret society dedicated to
Lucifer. The world's central bankers have intermarried
with the richest dynastic
families of Europe and America to bring about
world hegemony. They instigated wars and
depressions to degrade and destroy humanity.
The American people have been financing
their wars since 1914.
Zionist Theodor Herzl
"We Will Lead Every Revolution Against Us".
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