Total Embargo: West Aiming For Total Asset Freeze of Iranian Central Bank Assets Amid Currency Crisis

Greasing the gears of global governance, both the US and Europe are acting in a coordinated manner to ensure the acceleration of the Iranian rial’s current plunge and drain the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves, according to Obama administration officials, the US Congress and European Union. The sanctions campaign has kicked into high gear and will begin to resemble the sanctions the US put on Iraq over decades, which led to the starvation of millions. The first techniques of the new phase of sanctions will be detailed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on October 15, and is expected to include a ban on Iranian natural-gas exports and tighter restriction on transactions with the central bank in Tehran, if not an all-out boycott.

Other banks are also to be targeted into the new financial war led by Washington and Brussels as a means of pressuring Supreme Leader Ayatolla Ali Khamenei to cease his country’s nuclear program. The US and EU are also mulling over the technique of imposing a de facto trade embargo early in 2013. They plan on executing this by blocking all export and import transactions through Iran’s banking system. This is expected to curtail Tehran’s ability to access currency exchange markets, according to US and EU officials. Moreover, politicians in the US are currently drafting legislation that would give White House the initiative to block all international commerce with Iran’s central bank. The legislation also attempts to seize the authority to ban on all outside insuring of Iranian companies, so that once Washington blows Tehran and greater Iran to bits, there won’t be any need by western banks to pay out.  Other legislation calls for a blockage of investment in Iran’s energy sector by closing loopholes existing in the current sanctions.

The EU is open to implementing the measures for which the US is calling. It already backed the White House’s impediment of Iran’s oil trade this year. ”You could see a move for a total embargo,” said a senior European official involved in the sanctions debate. “This could fall in line with what Congress is thinking.”  The recent plunge in the price of the rial has give Washington the impetus to go after Tehran, kicking up the acts of war it has hitherto embarked upon.  Washington and Brussels is maintaining that Western sanctions are damaging Tehran’s financial outlook.

A held belief that Iran’s economy would remain strong in the face of sanctions due to deep oil reserves is quickly changing. ”There has been the perception that Iran is unmovable because of its oil resources,” a European official is quoted in the WSJ as saying. “This perception is quickly shifting.”

Iranian oil exports have been cut in half this year, say Iranian officials and independent shipping trackers. The US and European officials maintain that the effect of this has been tempered by increased oil production in the US, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya and other countries.  US and European officials sanctions put on the country in July are costing Tehran $15 billion in lost revenue energy every quarter. This, in turn is helping to force down the government’s foreign-exchange reserves, which were put at about $100 billion at the start of the year.  According to US officials, Iran’s central bank is unable to gain access to nearly 30% of its reserves, which have been frozen in overseas accounts.  Inflation in the nation is running nearly 70% annually. Iran has yet to begin selling dollars into the local currency market, say US and European officials, citing their sanctions as reason why.

Let them eat dirt cookies is the attitude of officials when pressed on the harm sanctions are doing to the Iranian people. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said: “They have made their own government decisions– having nothing to do with the sanctions– that have had an impact on the economic conditions inside of the country,”" Mrs. Clinton said. “Of course, the sanctions have had an impact as well, but those could be remedied in short order if the Iranian government were willing to work with. . .the international community in a sincere manner.”

Watch this video as Hillary Clinton cackles over the possibility of devastating war with Iran:

In Europe, the UK, France and Germany have been at the forefront of calling for sweeping new sanctions. Ministers from each of the three countries wrote to their fellow diplomats last month, urging them to move forward with sanctions on energy, finance, trade and transportation, according to the WSJ. By Thursday, the EU was close to agreeing to a ban on imports of Iranian natural gas and prohibiting exports of graphite to the country. Europeans are also mulling a freezing of all Iranian central bank assets.