Pour suivre l’“option nucléaire” : comment la Chine ne veut pas d'attaque contre l’Iran

Enchaînant sur l’hypothèse de l’“option nucléaire” évoquée par la Chine contre le dollar (voir sur notre Forum, l’article du Daily Telegraph de Ambrose Evans-Pritchard signalé par notre lecteur “Tu Quoque”), Paul Craig Roberts, qui s’intéresse beaucoup aux activités chinoises, évoque les moyens de pression dont les Chinois disposent désormais sur la politique extérieure US. Pour Craig Roberts, l’“option nucléaire” doit notamment permettre à la Chine d’exercer une réelle menace de priver l’administration GW Bush des moyens de poursuivre ses entreprises guerrières, et, encore plus, d’espérer en entreprendre de nouvelles, comme une attaque contre l’Iran. Craig Roberts imagine donc qu’il existe un lien indirect mais précis entre la menace financière chinoise et des pressions déterminées pour décourager tout projet d’attaque contre l’Iran.

«Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China’s power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy. The US was able to attack Afghanistan and Iraq only because China provided the largest part of the financing for Bush’s wars.

»If China ceased to buy US Treasuries, Bush’s wars would end. The savings rate of US consumers is essentially zero, and several million are afflicted with mortgages that they cannot afford. With Bush’s budget in deficit and with no room in the US consumer’s budget for a tax increase, Bush’s wars can only be financed by foreigners.

»No country on earth, except for Israel, supports the Bush regime's desire to attack Iran. It is China’s decision whether it calls in the US ambassador, and delivers the message that there will be no attack on Iran or further war unless the US is prepared to buy back $900 billion in US Treasury bonds and other dollar assets.

»The US, of course, has no foreign reserves with which to make the purchase. The impact of such a large sale on US interest rates would wreck the US economy and effectively end Bush’s war-making capability. Moreover, other governments would likely follow the Chinese lead, as the main support for the US dollar has been China’s willingness to accumulate them. If the largest holder dumped the dollar, other countries would dump dollars, too.

»The value and purchasing power of the US dollar would fall. When hard-pressed Americans went to Wal-Mart to make their purchases, the new prices would make them think they had wandered into Nieman Marcus. Americans would not be able to maintain their current living standard.

»Simultaneously, Americans would be hit either with tax increases in order to close a budget deficit that foreigners will no longer finance or with large cuts in income security programs. The only other source of budgetary finance would be for the government to print money to pay its bills. In this event, Americans would experience inflation in addition to higher prices from dollar devaluation.

»This is a grim outlook. We got in this position because our leaders are ignorant fools. So are our economists, many of whom are paid shills for some interest group. So are our corporate leaders whose greed gave China power over the US by offshoring the US production of goods and services to China. It was the corporate fat cats who turned US Gross Domestic Product into Chinese imports, and it was the “free trade, free market economists” who egged it on.

»How did a people as stupid as Americans get so full of hubris?»

Mis en ligne le 11 août 2007 à 14H54