Hello,

Some of you may or may not have noticed, but there's a little trouble going on in Syria. The fact that it hasn't been in the media lately doesn't report about it doesn't mean it's stable.

Recently I've dug into the matter a bit and this were my conclusions:

A little history:
After WW2, the US dollar was set as the *world reserve currency* which means that basic goods such as oil, wheat, ... were all priced in dollars on the international market. All of this paper money was printed by the US. Of course, this gave the US a significant advantage on the market. The US could, in theory, print its own money and trade it off for goods on the international market. To prevent this, the US promised to all nations that their dollars would be exchangable for gold at a rate of 1234.5 dollars per kilo. Sounds fair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

Now we jump from '45 to '70. It became clear that the US had pumped massive amounts of money into the Vietnam war. So some countries (*cough* France *cough*) started wondering if the US had secretly been printing out money. Because, you know, they'd just invested billions in a war and the life conditions in the US weren't deteriorating or anything. So France decided to exchange all of its dollars for gold. Nixon refused. In fact, Nixon didn't just deny France its gold, that it had honestly deserved by trade, it also scrappedthe whole dollar-gold-exchange rule. The US had just robbed the western world. I really wonder why this isn't taught in school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock

So how did the US prevent an all-out war? Well, the answer to that is simple. Nixon asked Saudi-Arabia to *only accept the US dollar* in exchange for oil. Seeing something going on here? Not only did he ask Saudi-Arabia, he asked every other oil-exporting country. The all accepted. By the end of 1975, every country exporting oil only accepted the dollar. Now what did they get in exchange? Military protection from the US. This tactic forced other nations to maintain the dollar. How could they obtain it? By sending goods to the US. Yes, the scam keeps going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar

Next: Iraq. In 2000 Iraq (after being obliterated by the Gulf War) started something called the "Oil-For-Food Program". The name says it all. In fact, Iraq now sold *oil for euros*. Of course, this was terribly bad for the US. What did the US do? Point a finger and yell "They've got a nuke!" and invaded the country. Again. Well, turns out that Iraq didn't have a nuke. The country was destroyed, though. After the Iraq war (2003) the nation suddenly stopped selling oil for euros and reverted back to dollars. Economical interests? Nope, they suffered about 20% loss because of this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme
Don't think I need to post a link to the gulf war & Iraq war wikipedia pages, do I?

Now, we're in the 2000's What's going on now?
Well, you all remember Libya, where Gaddhaffi was executed by rebels. Why? He launched a gold-for-oil program. What's more: besides a aspiring to establish a pan-African belt, Gaddhaffi also aspired establishing a new currency, a pure gold mint. They would then proceed to sell oil for gold (dinars). Now what happened to Gaddhaffi? Executed by rebels supported by the US. Seeing a pattern here?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72T6H220110330
http://rt.com/news/economy-oil-gold-libya/

Next point: Iran
Same story. Iran wanted to sell gold for oil, the US forbids it and threatens with military strikes to stop their alleged nuke-building business. It's strange how so little people manage to notice that every time a country tries selling oil for gold or euros, the US is there to try and stop it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...91F01F20130216
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse

Well, the independent Iranian oil market still exists, they didn't give in to America's sanctions. Who likes to buys there? China and Russia.

Next point: Syria
This is actually happening right now. Syria and Iran have a mutual defense agreement. The Syrian regime is being brought to its knees by rebels (surprisingly supported by the US). Remember the whole fuss about the Sarin gas used against by the Syrian government? Well, a Russian study shows that it wasn't the regime that used it, but rather the rebels. I don't know which one to trust, really. I don't know. Not saying Russia's right, not saying America's right. I think they're bod bad nations. I just think this matters deserves some thought.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/17/usa.syria
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2...ama-syria.html

So what you have now, is a two-sided fight between the world's strongest nations. On one side we have Russia, China and North Korea and a bunch of smaller countries. On the other side we have the USA, the NATO, South Korea, and, again, a few other smaller nations. They're all ganging up on one side of Syria, watching what the other player does. In fact, Russia's already supported the Syrian regime with surface-to-surface missiles. Russia has already warned the US several times that when they attack Iran and try to stop the Russian and Chinese import of non-dollar-funded oil, they will retaliate. Doesn't look like the US is going to stop any time soon. They can't, or the dollar collapses. The fact that the majority of oil nations only accept dollars is the only thing that keeps the dollar up.

So. How do you all think this is going to evolve?


*edit: just found this: http://news.yahoo.com/u-s--alerts-am...154921817.html
Not sure if related, gonna look into it.

things i gathered from this thread and the posts i deleted:
1. no1curr

I undeleted this thread because
1) there was no need for deletion
2) so I can use it for future reference