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Morrigan Johnson<\/p>\n
Ahistoric peace deal was\u00a0announced March 10, 2023<\/a>, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran adopting a trilateral peace agreement brokered by the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n In an instant the United States and its NATO allies lost control of West Asia and, most importantly, the international economic system has now begun to fragment. What this deal entailed is principally the normalization and re-establishment of relations between divided foes, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has set in motion a global domino effect.\u00a0Not too long after,\u00a0a peace agreement was announced in Yemen<\/a>\u00a0that finally holds the prospect of ending a genocidal war that had been part of the U.S. strategy of trying to isolate and contain Iran.<\/p>\n The international economic system since the last world war has been dominated by one globe-spanning corporate power, America above all other nations. The system is most notable for the\u00a0dominance of the U.S. dollar<\/a>, which was christened at the Bretton Woods Conference after World War II. In the 1960s French Finance Minister Val\u00e9ry Giscard d\u2019Estaing said that this system of American international finance is one of \u201cexorbitant privilege,\u201d thus coining the term of U.S. dollar dominance.<\/p>\n The USA props up its monopolies with the offset of international trading countries who have no other option but use the U.S. dollar as the international trade currency. The only state in the world who may intervene upon the U.S. dollar is the USA, in which money supply, money creation, interest, and price can be manipulated through central institutions like the Federal Reserve in the American interest, not any other nation or state\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n America is reliant on a system of finance which outsources production to places where it is cheaper to do, as America loses its old productive forces as production moves outside of its borders through corporate monopolies becoming multinational. In-order to exploit the natural resources, cheap labor, and dominate the markets of other nations and states, America relies upon finance to keep its new form afloat<\/p>\n International trade is exchanged in U.S. dollars, through banking systems such as SWIFT, even if commerce occurs between countries other than the United States and whose currencies would not normally be the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n However, many countries are now losing confidence in U.S. economic well-being and increasingly are attracted to rival powers like China and Russia and trying to form rival political-economic blocs.<\/p>\n Prominent economist\u00a0Zoltan Pozsar says<\/a>\u00a0that the dominance of the dollar is now being challenged\u2014along with U.S. global supremacy<\/p>\n The work to usher in a world of two systems has begun as many countries are non-aligning from the USA and it\u2019s imperialist hegemony, however, under pressure to pick a bloc, countries like Saudi Arabia have defied the USA, choosing the alternative to NATO\u2013the newly forming BRICS.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia\u2019s normalization and peace deal with Iran coincides with the interest to join the emerging financial infrastructure such as the New Development Bank (NDB), which a growing number of countries are partaking in the non alignment from the U.S. system, which is now snowballing into a movement<\/p>\n The most urgent need for the developing world, particularly in the last year since Russia\u2019s Special Military Operation began, is a replacement of the SWIFT system, such as\u00a0Russia\u2019s SPFS interbank messaging system<\/a>, and the potential of nations to trade in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, without fear of secondary sanction.<\/p>\n Russia has undertaken these new systems in the face of crippling U.S. sanctions,\u00a0imposed under fraudulent pretexts<\/a>, which have targeted its banking system and sought to freeze it out.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia is known for its enormous energy sector and having a strong role in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The precession of these deals comes with the emerging possibilities of global trade with power-players like OPEC\u00a0trading in yuan<\/a>\u00a0and other currencies in the near future. The global shift is gaining mass now, as countries tumble from the U.S. dollar. By April 2023, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa had\u00a0surpassed the G7 nations<\/a>\u00a0in economic might. With Saudi Arabia heading OPEC, the economic weight of the non-aligning BRICS countries has become significant.<\/p>\n Normalization and the establishment of relations of countries in West Asia ushers a new era in a region historically plundered and divided by Neocolonial forces for decades, reaping chaos and disaster in the name of US War on Terror, by swelling the U.S. military industrial complex in never ending war, taking the region\u2019s natural resources,\u2014namely oil, denial of competition, denial of sovereignty over the markets of regime changed states, and dividing supply chains pertaining to where trade can route and with whom.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia now holds a great deal of leverage in its non-alignement from the USA. Saudi Arabia is treading carefully not to dump the Americans altogether. Russia, Syria, and Iran have had very little choice due to the sanctions against them.<\/p>\n The self-determination of the region was reset and accelerated by Chinese mediation, in which non-interference and win-win cooperation are the new norms between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. During the previous peace talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the\u00a0USA had sabotaged them<\/a>\u00a0by assassinating Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020 who had been overseeing the peace process. By restarting the process. Beijing sponsored the diplomatic reset in Beijing without fear of sabotage.<\/p>\n The Western rules based international order as a paradigm has peddled that intervention, installation of new governments backed by the U.S., and enforcement of norms violations as America\u2013sees it, would dictate the only way a so-called \u2018Middle East\u2019 could develop. However, Chinese mediation has dawned a new period for the international situation by simply showing a will to try something else, whereby the win-win character of pluri-polar diplomacy has nothing to lose, and all the potential benefit to the world\u2019s people to gain in cooperation and non-interference.<\/p>\n The region has generally responded very well to the developments. Syria and Iraq have weighed in with similar interest in d\u00e9tente and cooperation in rebuilding the region. In 2021 Iraq had issued an\u00a0arrest warrant<\/a>\u00a0for Trump over the assassination of Iranian general Soleimani, to rouse justice over the\u00a0 sabotaged prospects for the region\u2019s other countries.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0had\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0on March 10, \u201c\u2026could lead to a major realignment in the Middle East\u201d. Past attempts to normalize the region based upon diplomacy and security had been seriously attempted. The difference now, is a clear\u00a0snub to US imperialism<\/a>.<\/p>\n The entire region\u2019s nations and states\u2013share a concern against U.S. imperialism. The non-alignment from the USA could be a sign of future alignment with the escalating New Cold War and the rise of China, which leaves the USA\u2019s reputation \u2018on-notice\u2019 for the entire region.<\/p>\n The war on Yemen has seen very little prospects for Saudi interests since the war reached a stalemate by 2015, beyond the proxy interests of the USA in the regional denial of Iran. By normalizing with Iran, the proxy war on Saudi Arabia\u2019s border neighbor of Yemen appears to be a regional liability of casualties and money, and whether the USA\u2019s proxy continues to be convincing enough for the Kingdom to wage it on their behalf is up in the air. With the\u00a0extension of a truce<\/a>, Saudi\u2019s Americanized foreign concept remains \u2018peace through war\u2019. Truces\u00a0may not<\/a>\u00a0develop to peace until the US stops meddling in West Asia\u2019s regional affairs.<\/p>\n Reports show<\/a>\u00a0that Saudi Arabia is set to reopen embassies with Syria, with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad making a\u00a0landmark visit<\/a>\u00a0to Saudi Arabia on April 12 2023, signaling to the region an era of\u00a0re-integration<\/a>. Biden has committed to the\u00a0continued occupation<\/a>\u00a0of Syria regardless of the sovereign surviving state re-integrating into the region.<\/p>\n Considering the normalization of West Asia, the economic temptation is rising for Pakistan to defy the US sanctions in proceeding with the\u00a0Peace Pipeline<\/a>\u00a0with Iran, which would likely reveal the U.S. backed snakes mid-way into a coup to depose the\u00a0democratically elected leader<\/a>, Imran Khan. The internal pressure in Pakistan was already\u00a0high<\/a>.<\/p>\n The U.S., meanwhile, has been up to its old tricks in Pakistan where the Biden administration backed a coup against democratically elected leader Imran Khan, who attempted to\u00a0defy U.S. sanctions by proceeding with a \u201cpeace pipeline\u201d with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n But soon the \u201cbully\u201d won\u2019t have many friends left to carry out its dirty agendas by proxy.<\/p>\n The standard is that anyone who resists Washington will be pegged for regime change. Washington, however, is now furious at the Middle East\u2019s re-alignment. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has anticipated retaliation and now holds the international economy by its hair.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia will not sell oil<\/a>\u00a0to any country that imposes price ceilings on its supplies,\u201d Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said following the trilateral deal in March. The OPEC+ alliance would stick to production cuts agreed in October until the end of the year, and remains wary of the NOPEC bill (No Oil Production and Export Cartels<\/a>) which has been proposed by the U.S. Senate along with other price caps imposed by Western countries.<\/p>\n Going forward with antitrust NOPEC legislation against OPEC could result in a dangerous backlash in global economic volatility and instability, especially if Saudi Arabia isn\u2019t bluffing. On April 2nd 2023, the OPEC+ alliance of countries announced\u00a0unexpected production cuts<\/a>\u00a0which will begin by May 2023 in anticipation of reduced demand due to global economic slowdown.<\/p>\n When 2 million bpd were cut in October of 2022, another 1.5 million bpd will be cut by May between OPEC and non-OPEC countries (OPEC+). \u201cThe President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine,\u201d the\u00a0White House announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two considerations can be made in the surprise OPEC+ announcement, neither of which are exclusive of each other. First is the consequences of a systemic banking crisis after several\u00a0banks collapsed<\/a>, slowing the world economy with crude dropping to less than\u00a075$ per barrel<\/a>. A 10% drop in price marks a 15-month low. The second factor is the context of the aforementioned threat of turning off the taps in retaliation to the proposed antitrust measures such as NOPEC which comes as the tone from West Asia towards U.S. imperialism turns cold.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/word-image-55054-2.jpeg?resize=600%2C341&ssl=1\")
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Diplomacy is easy if you try, and even easier when the bully isn\u2019t in the room<\/em><\/h3>\n
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You cannot divide and conquer a geopolitical domino effect in real time<\/em><\/h3>\n
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A bully on the defensive<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
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