Pepe Escobar: The US-GCC Fatal Attraction!

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Khomeini (Iran religious leader): “We will never build a nuclear bomb. It is anti Islamic!”

• The US-GCC fatal attraction 
  By Pepe Escobar, http://www.atimes.com/
  There’s no way to understand the larger-than-life United States-Iran psychodrama, the Western push for regime change in both Syria and Iran, and the trials and tribulations of the Arab Spring(s) – now mired in perpetual winter – without a close look at the fatal attraction between Washington and the GCC. [1]
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  GCC stands for Gulf Cooperation Council, the club of six wealthy Persian Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – UAE), founded in 1981 and which in no time configured as the prime strategic US backyard for the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, for the long-drawn battle in the New Great Game in Eurasia, and also as the headquarters for “containing” Iran.
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  The US Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain and Central Command’s forward headquarters is based in Qatar; Centcom polices no less than 27 countries from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia – what the Pentagon until recently defined as “the arc of instability”. In sum: the GCC is like a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf magnified to Star Trek proportions.
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  I prefer to refer to the GCC as the Gulf Counter-revolution Club – due to its sterling performance in suppressing democracy in the Arab world, even before Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia over a year ago.
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  Cueing to Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, the Rosebud inside the GCC is that the House of Saud sells its oil only in US dollars – thus the pre-eminence of the petrodollar – and in exchange benefits from massive, unconditional US military and political support. Moreover the Saudis prevent the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) – after all they’re the world’s largest oil producer – to price and sell oil in a basket of currencies. These rivers of petrodollars then flow into US equities and Treasury bonds.
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  For decades virtually the whole planet has been held hostage to this fatal attraction. Until now. 
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  … for more click here!

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