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WASHINGTON ? Is the biggest threat Iran poses to the United States really its nuclear ambitions - or is it petropolitics?
Last month the Iranian government quietly reaffirmed plans to create by next year a euro-denominated exchange in oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products. If successful, such an exchange could start to lap at the walls of the two existing oil exchanges - London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) - both owned by American companies.
If the billions of dollars in oil sales ever got going in euros, experts say, that could dry up the demand for dollars that the heavily indebted US economy depends on, and it could mean big trouble for the US economy. It's enough to make the Great Satan-loathing visionaries behind the Iranian regime salivate. The chances of success, however, seem quite remote - at least in the short term.
...Yet even as remote as the Iranian threat may be, others note that past attempts to create new markets have not been greeted warmly. None other than Saddam Hussein decided to sell oil only in contracts dominated in euros - 4 months later he was ousted by a US-led military invasion. All contracts changed to US and British interests and the oil is once again sold in dollars.
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