...
The latest flavor of Islamic Republic would suffer only
tangentially and try to obtain all their needs through barter or exchange. Their life styles would remain similar to what
they had until very recently as military men and whether the populace is unhappy – preferably so for the Hojatieh –
means little or nothing in their big picture.
At very best, the USA would enter another Carter administration
era financial pattern:
1. Interest rates were so high nobody could afford to finance
a house, so this market sector, like many other big-ticket items such as automobiles, slowed to almost a halt in some instances.
2. Grocery items had multiple superimposed price stickers
as the cost of goods rose faster than customers bought them. Imported retail merchandise normally sells or distributes through
national chains like Walmart or food chains, so a drop in the dollar makes these more expensive for the buyer and leads to
layoffs as the retail chains find their sales volumes and profit margins eroded.
3. The price of energy shot up so much people resorted to
wood burning stoves to stay warm at a price they could afford. The quality of life went down.
4. People on fixed incomes could no longer afford to live
and the more solvent could not keep abreast of rising prices and interest rates. A drop in the dollar immediately cuts into
the value of saved money.
5. Running a business became almost impossible as the price
of goods and materials skyrocketed. Sales to a greatly less solvent market plummeted and marketing assumptions needed for
advertising, budgeting and planning became wild guesses at best.
What might happen if the dollar devalued rapidly? Global
ruin.
With economies so interdependent and interwoven, a global
not just American Depression would occur with a domino effect throwing the rest of world economies into poverty. Markets for
acutely less expensive US exports would never materialize.
The result, some SME's estimate, might be as many as 200
million Americans out of work and starving on the streets with nobody and nothing able to rescue or aid them, contrary to
the 1920/30 Great Depression through soup kitchens and charitable support efforts.
Iran
would most likely intentionally sabotage any return to stability and market balance/adjustment with their fossil fuels; their
newfound nuclear deterrent probably discouraging use of force against them until too late.
A close look shows Ahmadi-Nejad holds the key to throwing
the world into the tribulations of the Weimar Republic of Germany after World War I. High inflation and interest rates drove
the value of the Mark into the ground and allowed Hitler to present himself as a savior.
To provide an adequate cash flow to the working class, Hitler
promised to pay them once a week, then twice a week, then once a day. When this failed, he allowed workers two hours off work
every day to trundle wheelbarrows full of German currency, which barely sufficed to buy a loaf of bread.
Iran succeeding in unlinking the Dollar as the primary currency
for oil purchases, were it to occur, creates the same outcome for the USA and consequently within short time frames for the
rest of the civilized world.
To deny history repeating itself with Ahmadi-Nejad's Hojatieh
minded governing group filling in for Hitler, suggests a refusal to face and counteract an indescribable menace beyond the
reach of Western logic but totally in alignment with this specific brand of Islamic fervor to intentionally create an apocalypse.
Then to impose Islamic rule on a shattered world.
CONCLUSION
Apart from the use of nuclear arms by the West to bring
down the new regime in Iran, only an internal effort by the old-guard
Ayatollahs to overcome Ahmadi-Nejad and his allies, at the clear risk of a civil war they would lose, has a hope of preventing
a potential global Depression.
Few other counter measures come to mind. Mostly because
of the shortcoming of the global "family" of nations to withstand mindless nihilism and an untrammeled desire to destroy in
the name of their 12th Imam.
When Iran's lately announced pull back from subsidizing
refined gas prices domestically and import of this fuel takes hold on the population, who will suddenly be unable to afford
to operate vehicles, the dissatisfaction could translate into riots and open a new window to remove the Islamic regime of
whatever flavor.
In-depth bombing, specifically of all Iranian military and
nuclear facilities at that time – possibly the 5,000 locations mentioned above – would weaken or remove any government
ability to suppress the riots and allow a smooth overthrow of the current regime.
The unanswered question – as was the case in Gulf
War I with Iraq and Saddam Hussain – will be with what or with whom to replace
it.
