Is the Iran Oil Bourse the casus belli?
By F William Engdahl, author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, Pluto Books Ltd. Mr Engdahl can be reached through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net. March 9th, 2006 A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Teheran government to institute a Teheran Oil Bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran from the Anglo-American powers. The thesis is simply wrong for many reasons, not the least, that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990s, as an integral part of the US Greater Middle East strategy. More significantly, the Oil Bourse argument is a Red Herring that diverts attention to the real geopolitical grounds behind the march towards war which have been detailed on this website, including in my piece, A High-Risk Game of Nuclear Chicken which appeared in Asia Times Online on January 31, 2006 In 1996, Richard Perle and Doug
