Following President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, the Iranian government announced it would stop using the U.S. dollar “as its currency of choice in its financial and foreign exchange reports,” the local Financial Tribune reported.This is likely the reason why the Trump administration officials are currently engaging in vitriolic verbal attacks on Iran (see this and this). This was likely the reason why we first invaded and toppled Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq, the first of seven too independent Muslim countries that became a target for the Empire in the Middle East and Africa according to (retired) Gen. Wesley Clark in a speech delivered in 2007. (Notice these are most of the same countries that were reportedly included in Trump's ban.)
The securing of the US dollar as a primary world reserve currency is critically important to the dominant position of the US Empire in the world, and it is also necessary to prevent rampant inflation within the US. This has enabled the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank to issue huge volumes of dollars and lend them at near zero interest to banks which, in turn, has lent them to us at much higher interest to help bail them out.
Because of the huge war debts the US racked up in the Vietnam War, Nixon was forced in the 1970s to remove gold from backing the US dollar. The solution was provided by Nixon and Kissinger and the 1974 agreement with that medieval kingdom of Saudi Arabia whereby the Saudi monarchy agreed to sell their vast supplies of oil only in US dollars in return for protection by the Empire. If this appears like a Mafia style arrangement, it appears so because it is.
So this move on the part of Iran is another reason why the directors of the Empire, lodged in various "think tanks" like the Council on Foreign Relations, and their "employees" in Congress are so upset with Iran.
