Terrorist Recommended: American Style Banking

 

Terrorist Recommended: American Style Banking

We Seem to Have Done It to Ourselves

After the US and her allies triumphed against Iraq following their 1990/91 invasion of Kuwait in the first Gulf War, former Director of the CIA and then President, George H W Bush, did not depose Iraq’s Sunni leader, Saddam Hussein, for a very good reason. Sunnis – Islam’s Quranic literalists representing 80% of the Muslim world – and Shiites – Islam’s spiritualists (only a cleric of the highest order can tell you what the Quaran means), representing 20% of Islam – intensely dislike and mistrust each other. Since Iran is well over 90% Shiite, it is at odds with most of the rest of Muslim countries (like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.). Iraq, being 60% Shiite was well contained by a Sunni dictator and very much not under the influence and control of Iran. This nasty Hussein Sunni government was a good counter to Iran and her expansionist goals. Until…

That 20% Sunni minority government was blown out by the Second Gulf War that began in 2003, Saddam Hussein was deposed and ultimately executed, and the United States, under George W Bush, imposed both a transitional and later a more permanent “constitutional” government in which that 60% Shiite majority effective took control. Iraqi Sunnis suddenly found themselves investigated and arrested where they posed even a slight threat to the Shiite-dominated government. And here’s the headline: despite feigning an alliance with the United States, Shiite Iraq rapidly fell within Iran’s Shiite hegemony.

Shortly after the departure of US troops, the most powerful Iraqi Shia militia (the Mahdi Army, pictured above) created by Muqtada al-Sadr, was merged into the Iraqi military structure and disbanded as a separate force. Iran rapidly became the most powerful nation in the Middle East, committed to containing the United States and her allies, an avowed enemy of Israel, began developing nuclear weapons (always denied). With the use of surrogates in the Middle East and Africa, Iran spread its regional power with military aid and instruction. In short, by deposing Hussein, under our false premise of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the United States destabilized the Middle East, in my opinion, for at least a century. The Gaza War is an obvious off-shoot of America’s de facto enabling of Iran’s rise to power by eliminating her Sunni enemy next door.

But there is another toxicity that developed as the US continued to pretend that “liberated Iraq” was/is our ally. Heavily sanctioned Iran, cut off from most of the necessary trade and banking from much of the world, was/is able to use that “American ally Iraq” whenever it required access to global banking, a fact that has made more than a few terrorist groups smile. According to David Cloud, writing for the September 9th Wall Street Journal, “Iraqi Banks Used U.S.-Created System to Funnel Funds to Iran… New York Fed’s process to move Baghdad’s oil earnings lacked key money-laundering safeguards, resulting in illicit transfers that financed terrorist groups for years…

“Among Iraqi banks overall, as much as 80% of the more than $250 million in dollar wire transfers flowing through them on some days were untraceable and some portion of that amount went secretly to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the anti-U.S. militias it supports, according to U.S. officials.

“A top U.S. Treasury official told Iraqi officials at a Baghdad meeting in January that Iraqi banks ‘deliberately exploited’ their access to U.S. dollars to support the Quds Force, a paramilitary arm of the IRGC, and also the militia groups operating in Iraq that the Iranian government backs, according to U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

“The militias were involved in ‘ongoing attacks’ on U.S. forces, including some that have caused casualties, Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, told Central Bank of Iraq officials at the meeting, the officials familiar with the discussions said… The U.S. has taken action to block the suspected Iraqi banks from using the Fed system to transfer dollars, Nelson told the Journal in an interview. ‘It’s been important for Treasury to ensure those funds are not diverted in support of the Iranian regime.’ Nelson, who left Treasury in August, declined through a spokeswoman to discuss his talks with Iraqi officials.

“The crackdown on Iraqi banks started in late 2022 after more than a decade of U.S. inaction, even after warnings by the Pentagon inspector general as long ago as 2012 of potential fraud on the order of $800 million a week. Current and former U.S. officials said that over the years the U.S. implemented temporary restrictions on cash flows to Iraq, but feared that tight or permanent controls would plunge Iraq into economic chaos and set back its fight against Islamic State.

“For Iran, which has been sanctioned for illicit nuclear activity and for supporting terrorism, access to dollars is critical for buying weapons and parts for drones and missiles, and financing armed groups it supports around the Middle East, U.S. officials said.”

Indeed, what was obvious to me (and to former President George H W Bush), eliminating Iraq’s Sunni leaders was clearly predicated on profound ignorance of regional politics and the rather clear tension between Shiites and Sunnis in the Iran/Iraq theater. Even Iran’s ally Syria, which is 80% Sunni, is led by a super-oppressive Alawite (a branch of Shiites) Assad regime, representing a mere 10% of that nation’s faith. Russia is a heavy supporter of Iran and Syria… and de facto, Iraq. We made this happen. We enabled Iran to grow out of control. Those within that professional cadre of dedicated American civil servants, in both our intelligence agencies and the Department of State, absolutely knew what was happening… but a headstrong president and his advisors simply ignored what was obvious to the experts. The chaos we call the Middle East was thus further significantly derailed and exploded by bad decision-making at the top. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Donald Trump calls for disbanding the civil service and turning the Department of Justice on his political opponents, it is no wonder that those malign forces interfering with our upcoming election favor Trump to win.