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I can't pretend to understand the implications of this article.

Through using a Caspian gas price as a Eurasian energy benchmark and by literally monetizing gas, the problems of dollar economics may be transcended and a new era in energy cooperation could begin provided one or more major consumer nations is included.

[...]

If Iran and Russia as major producers, and China as the fastest growing consumer, were to link in an "E-3", this could introduce a completely new dimension to global energy politics.

Can anyone explain, in layperson's terms, what it means?

emordnilap wrote:I can't pretend to understand the implications of this article.

Through using a Caspian gas price as a Eurasian energy benchmark and by literally monetizing gas, the problems of dollar economics may be transcended and a new era in energy cooperation could begin provided one or more major consumer nations is included.

[...]

If Iran and Russia as major producers, and China as the fastest growing consumer, were to link in an "E-3", this could introduce a completely new dimension to global energy politics.

Can anyone explain, in layperson's terms, what it means?

It means that the US has succeeded in cutting Iran off from the financial/business system of the G7, but that this is going to backfire on them because it puts a massive pressure on Iran to become the focus of a new sort of global economic system, entirely divorced from The System we know and hate. Between them, Iran, Russia and China, all three of which are potentially enemies of the US, control a very large chunk of the remaining oil and other resources, and it is now looking increasingly inevitable that they are going to form the nucleus (the E-3) of a new, parallel global economic system which not only bypasses the G7 and the US sanctions but also the entire modern banking industry. It will involve instead a series of ad-hoc bilaterial or trilateral agreements, focusing on energy.

In short it is talking about putting together a new global economic order that can exist in parallel to The System, and which will remain standing if and when The System collapses. It is a not a direct threat to US hegemony, but it is a massive indirect threat, because the more obvious it becomes that the entire existing global monetary system is f****d, the more reason "neutral" nations (like India, for example) might join in with the new E-3 and turn it into an E7, or an E21. We have been discussing for a long time on this board what might follow if/when The System crashes, and this would appear to be the answer.

Thanks.

Not the sort of thing Murica usually allows though, is it? Other people making decisions about the US's oil?

emordnilap wrote:Thanks.

Not the sort of thing Murica usually allows though, is it? Other people making decisions about the US's oil?

The US has spent the last 15 years overplaying its hand and making the wrong strategic decisions. They must now get used to the consequences whether they like it or not. The total economic isolation of Iran was just the last in a long series of backfiring attempts by the US to enforce their monopoly on global power: PNAC, the occupation of Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, now this.

15?