Putting an end to the global hegemony of the dollar ... a way to end economic wars forever

In a report published by the American newspaper "The New Republic", the writers David Adler and Daniel Pessner said that two days after the assassination of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani with an American drones outside Baghdad International Airport, the Iraqi parliament approved a non-binding decision to expel the American army from his country.

For its part, the US State Department refused to accept the parliament’s decision, and US President Donald Trump threatened to impose sanctions on Iraq because of this decision, saying, "We have a very expensive air base there, it cost us billions of dollars to build it, we will not leave unless they pay us for that."

To ensure that Iraq continues to accept the American presence, the State Department has resorted to the strength of the US dollar, through which it largely controls the supply and distribution of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and has threatened to prevent Iraq from accessing its account in the Federal Reserve.

This would effectively paralyze the government’s ability to provide basic services, and an official in Baghdad believes that in the face of this threat that will cause Iraq’s collapse, Iraqis have backed away from their call to evacuate American forces, and it appears that the US military will remain in the country indefinitely .

The rule of the dollar
The authors pointed out that ending the "endless wars" has become common in the Democratic Party, and from activists on the street, to the presidential candidates in the discussion stage, and a new consensus has emerged that the nation must reduce its military budget and curb the ability of the executive branch to ignite conflicts A foreigner can not win.

But with a heavy focus on reducing the military budget, the endless debate over the war largely ignores the financial structure of the American empire. As the case of Iraq illustrates, the dollar is the primary pillar of US military hegemony, as it encourages and helps in its expansion around the world.

To curb the trend of US imperial adventure and the president's personal ability to engage in it unilaterally, it is not only necessary to reduce the massive global military presence of the United States, but also to reduce the central importance of the dollar to international trade and finance.

The United States has long been making use of its economic strength to advance its foreign policy agenda, and in the early twentieth century the "dollar diplomacy" imposed by the United States replaced Latin America's sovereignty with American capital and control of the local customs interest.

According to William Howard Taft - who began to implement dollar diplomacy - this substitution will enhance US interests and reduce violent conflict around the world.

The authors added that the superiority of the dollar helped preserve US imperial adventures, while the army was deployed mostly to protect the sovereignty of the dollar.

When the independent Liberal Party of Nicaragua threatened American control over that country’s economy, Taft dispatched 2,500 Marines to ensure that American banks continued to service Nicaragua's debt.

In the decades that followed, the ties between dollars and imperialism grew strongly, and according to historian Stuart Schrader, the "empire of bases" constructed by the United States after World War II "exists to protect the privilege of the expensive dollar."

In October 2000, Saddam Hussein decided to convert the currency of Iraqi oil exchanges from the dollar, which he called the "enemy country" currency, to the euro.

But the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 safely returned the country's oil industry to the dollar class, and soon after the invasion, American decision-makers created an account for the Iraqi Central Bank in the US Federal Reserve, the same account that Trump is currently threatening to freeze.

Attempts to challenge the dollar
As for the US relationship with Iran, it is overshadowed by monetary tension. In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on OPEC to pursue a good and fair currency that compensates the role of the US dollar, and established the Iranian Oil Exchange to allow the exchange of resources in non-dollar categories. In this way, Iran has challenged the dollar, which is a major source of American power.

In the short term, the United States can still deploy its dollar power to intimidate its enemies and allies alike; for example, most foreign leaders have agreed to Trump's decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Tehran and impose new sanctions on the Iranian economy.

Even countries that sympathize with Iran and have a strong currency have been forced to keep up with Trump's policies for fear of losing access to the US dollar.

The violent use of the dollar's strength has generated a noticeable reaction. Russia and China are currently working to diversify their currency reserves and expand bilateral trade in currencies other than the dollar.

The United States' opponents are not the only ones pushing to abandon the dollar, as some European Union leaders are bothered by the fact that the dollar limits the scope of their freedom of action.

Cash pluralism
If the White House enters a progressive president in 2021 who questions US imperialism, he will face a real dilemma: Should he use the strength of the US dollar to achieve goals such as curbing illicit financing and ending tax evasion, or abandoning the dollar’s ​​strength in order to weaken the American empire?

The answer is that the two should be done together; on the one hand, the progressive government should deploy the current dollar strength to eliminate the illicit financing system. On the other hand, this government must simultaneously lead the transition towards a more fair international monetary system.

Indeed, only monetary pluralism can prevent the United States from pursuing its devastating global plans.

In conclusion, the authors note that defenders of the so-called "liberal global order" will likely retreat when the sovereignty of the dollar recedes, even though they are concerned that American military restraint may herald the end of American peace, which was not in fact peaceful, but monetary diversity - Like military restraint - it is a necessary step towards a peaceful world.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration - which seeks to spread the influence of the dollar - proves to all observers that there is a dark side to economic integration, and the dollar may connect the United States with the rest of the world, but it does so as a means of domination.