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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that unlike Obama’s 2013 Iran blockade, it would be harder for countries to get waivers on Iran oil sanctions as the US is already working on disconnecting Iran from the SWIFT network and dismissed concerns that oil prices could rise, saying the market had already factored in the output losses.

Speaking in an interview with Reuters in Jerusalem on Sunday at the start of a Middle East trip, Mnuchin said countries would have to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil by more than the roughly 20% level they did from 2013 to 2015 to get waivers. “I would expect that if we do give waivers it will be significantly larger reductions,” said the US Treasury Secretary.

To achieve the US goal of further isolating Iran from the global financial community, Mnuchin said that the U.S. Treasury was already in negotiations with the Belgian-based financial messaging service SWIFT which intermediates the bulk of the world’s cross-border dollar-denominated transactions, on disconnecting Iran from the network. Washington has been pressuring SWIFT to cut Iran from the system as it did in 2012 before the nuclear deal.

Validating European concerns that the US can and will weaponize the dollar at will and use the reserve currency as a global bargaining chip, Mnuchin’s threats confirmed that although the United States does not hold a majority on SWIFT’s board of directors, the Trump administration could impose penalties on SWIFT unless it disconnects from Iran, pressuring it to comply with US demands.

“I can assure you our objective is to make sure that sanctioned transactions do not occur whether it’s through SWIFT or any other mechanism,” he said, “Our focus is to make sure that the sanctions are enforced.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Earthquake in International Alliances

October 21, 2018

The Earthquake in International Alliances

America’s international alliances are transforming in fundamental ways. The likelihood of World War III is increasing, and has been increasing ever since 2012 when the US first slapped Russia with the Magnitsky Act sanctions. In fact, one matter driving these changing alliances now toward unprecedented realignments is that some nations’ leaders want to do whatever they can to prevent WW III.

On October 17^th, America’s Military Times bannered “Why today’s troops fear a new war is coming soon” and reported, “About 46 percent of troops who responded to the anonymous survey of currently serving Military Times readers said they believe the US will be drawn into a new war within the next year. That’s a jarring increase from only about 5 percent who said the same thing in a similar poll conducted in September 2017.” Their special fear is of war against Russia and/or China: “About 71 percent of troops said Russia was a significant threat, up 18 points from last year’s survey. And 69 percent of troops said China poses a significant threat, up 24 points from last year.” The US spends around half of the entire world’s military budget; and, after 9/11, has invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and perpetrated a bloody coup turning Ukraine into a rabidly anti-Russian government on Russia’s very doorstep and even an applicant for NATO membership though, in 2009, before Obama’s coup overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected Government, even US media reported that “barely 25 percent of Ukrainians favor joining NATO.” After 1991 when Russia’s anti-American Warsaw Pact military alliance ended, America’s anti-Russian NATO military alliance expanded right up to Russia’s very borders. Nonetheless, these troops aren’t afraid that the US is posing a threat to Russia and maybe to China, but that Russia and China are both posing threats against America; they trust their Government; it’s what they’re taught to believe. But the reality is very different. And it involves all of the “great power” relationships — not only US, Russia, and China.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“All-Out War” Coming: Record Number Of Israeli Tanks Amassed On Gaza Border

October 19, 2018

“All-Out War” Coming: Record Number Of Israeli Tanks Amassed On Gaza Border

After months of violence and widespread protests along the Israeli-Gaza border fence, Israeli is quickly ramping up its military presence with a show of force a day after launching deadly airstrikes on Gaza in response to what officials say were two rockets fired from the strip earlier this week.

Reuters has reported some 60 Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers now stationed at a deployment area along the border as of Thursday, which is the largest reported mustering of forces since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

*On Thursday a Reuters photographer counted some 60 tanks and armored troop carriers at a deployment area near the Gaza Strip. Via Reuters)*

Special UN envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, told the UN Security Council on Thursday that “we remain on the brink of another potentially devastating conflict, a conflict that nobody claims to want, but a conflict that needs much more than just words to prevent”.

One of the rockets launched Wednesday reportedly landed in the sea, however, Israeli officials said it came dangerously close to densely populated Tel Aviv. Hamas, for its part, denied responsibility for the rocket launches and said it would investigate.

Meanwhile Israel retaliated in Wednesday airstrikes on Gaza, which reportedly killed at least one Palestinian while injuring several more. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu further convened his security cabinet on the same day of the Gaza rocket launches and promised to take “very strong action” if such attacks continued.

*Israel largest armor deployment since the 2014 war was documented by Reuters this week.*

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Opportunities Abound After Khashoggi-Gate

October 19, 2018

Opportunities Abound After Khashoggi-Gate

Every crisis is also an opportunity. Don’t worry I’m not about to go all Rahm Emmanuel, Mr. Realpolitik, on you today. The disappearance/death/dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi is both a crisis and an opportunity for the worst people in the world.

And all of them are seizing the day, as it were.

Frankly, most of it makes me sick to my stomach. Because where were these virtue-signaling champions of human rights like Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan or Lindsay Graham (R – AIPAC) for the past three years as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) prosecuted a starvation campaign in Yemen with U.S. complicity?

Does Lindsay not know that MbS is funding the U.S. occupation in eastern Syria he’s so in love with?

Now all of a sudden, every war-monger in Washington and Wall St. wants to cut ties with him because killing a political opponent is “beyond the pale?” Even Christine LaGarde of the IMF will be a no-show at MbS’s big “Davos in the Desert” conference.

This is a political hit job.

If this faux outrage wasn’t so transparent it would be pathetic. On second thought, it is pathetic.

The truth is MbS is a monster. But, he’s our monster, unfortunately. We’ve known this since the moment he entered the scene.

Since getting Trump’s stamp of approval in early 2017 MbS has used that to go too far a number of times which the U.S. has had to clean up behind him. His blockade of Qatar didn’t have Washington’s approval.

I’m sure killing Khashoggi in the Saudi Turkish consulate didn’t either.

His consolidation of power was swift and brutal.

It’s only just now dawning on American media companies that the Saudis are a bunch of brutal thugs that make the Lannisters look like Quakers?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Implications Of A Fractured U.S., Saudi Alliance

October 17, 2018

The Implications Of A Fractured U.S., Saudi Alliance

After the resurgence of the U.S. oil industry in recent years due to hydraulic fracking and the shale oil revolution, most thought the days of Middle Eastern oil producers, Saudi Arabia in particular, being able to threaten use of the so-called oil weapon as geopolitical leverage or even coercion were over. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even though the U.S. is pumping oil at record levels, hitting 11 million barrels of oil per day, a rate that should have negated such a threat from ever resurfacing, it seems that Washington has also arguably shot global oil markets in the foot by re-imposing economic sanctions against Iran, with more sanctions slated to hit the Islamic Republic’s energy sector in just a matter of weeks.

The loss of Iranian barrels from global oil markets has already pushed prices well past $80 per barrel recently, and prices could break into the $90 plus range after November. Added to the fray are long term production problems in major OPEC producers Venezuela, Nigeria and Libya – in effect offsetting the ramp-up in U.S. production and the ability for shale producers to play the coveted role of oil markets swing producer. Now Saudi Arabia has taken at least marginal control of oil markets back again – not a comforting prospect for many.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it would retaliate against any punitive measures from the U.S. linked to the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi with even “stronger ones.” In what Bloomberg News called an implicit reference to the kingdom’s petroleum wealth, the Saudi statement noted the Saudi economy “has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

1973 oil embargo remembered

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Arabian Game of Thrones Heats Up

October 16, 2018

The Arabian Game of Thrones Heats Up

The reported torture, murder, and dismemberment of Washington-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate-general in Istanbul reminded the world that an intense power play is now taking place within the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula and between them.

In November 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the arrest and detention at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton Hotel of over 200 members of the Saudi royal family, including eleven rival princes, as well as government ministers and influential businessmen. That came after an October 2017 meeting in Riyadh between MBS and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, conclave that lasted well into the early morning hours. At the meeting, Kushner is said to have turned over to MBS a list of the names of the Crown Prince’s opponents: leading figures of the Saudi royal house, government, and major businesses. The list may have also contained the name “Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.”

The list of Saudi names was, reportedly, compiled by Kushner from top secret special code word documents he had specifically requested from the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency. The documents were specifically requested by Kushner, not because he was an expert in communications intercepts, but because he likely had a control officer who told him what files to obtain. The Kushner family have longstanding ties to the Israeli Likud Party, as well as the Mossad intelligence service. The Mossad enjoys a close working relationship with the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate, which is now firmly committed to MBS after a previous purge of its upper ranks following MBS’s rise to the heir apparent position in the House of Saud.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Killing of Saudi Journalist Khashoggi Could Spell the End for Mohammad bin Salman

October 12, 2018

The Killing of Saudi Journalist Khashoggi Could Spell the End for Mohammad bin Salman

The death of famous journalist Saudita Jamal Khashoggi is likely to have important repercussions, revealing the hypocrisy of the mainstream media, tensions inside the Saudi regime, and the double standards of Western countries.

On October 2nd, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly killed inside Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey. The sequence of events seems to show that the murder was premeditated. Two days before his death, Khashoggi went to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to obtain documents pertaining to his divorce in preparation to remarry in the United States. The Saudi embassy instructed him to return on October 2nd to collect the documents, which he duly did. He entered the embassy around 1pm on October 2nd but never exited. Khashoggi’s fiancée, after waiting several hours, raised the alarm as Khashoggi had instructed her to do should he not reemerge after two hours.

It is from here that we should start to reconstruct this story that resembles a science-fiction novel even by Saudi standards, a country that does not hesitate to kidnap heads of state, as was the case with the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, about a year ago.

Jamal Khashoggi is a controversial figure, a representative of the shadowy world of collaboration that sometimes exists between journalism and the intelligence agencies, in this case involving the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and the United States. It has been virtually confirmed by official circles within the Al Saud family that Khashoggi was an agent in the employ of Riyadh and the CIA during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan.

From 1991 to 1999, he continued to serve in several countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan, Kuwait and other parts of the Middle East, often maintaining an ambiguous role in the service of his friend Turki Faisal Al-Saud, the future Saudi ambassador to Washington and London and later supreme head of Saudi intelligence for 24 years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IRGC Commander Says Netanyahu Will “Flee Into Sea,” Should “Practice Swimming”

October 6, 2018

IRGC Commander Says Netanyahu Will “Flee Into Sea,” Should “Practice Swimming”

In a fiery message aimed at Tel Aviv, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps deputy commander Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami issued a warning to Israel, Middle East-based source Al Masdar News reports.

“I tell the prime minister of the Zionist regime to practice swimming in the Mediterranean because soon you will have no choice but [to] flee into the sea,” Salami said, speaking at a rally in Isfahan, central Iran on Friday, according to Fars News.

*IRGC Deputy Commander Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami*

“They are not at the level of being a threat for us; Hezbollah is enough for destroying them,” the commander added, speaking before IRGC volunteers. Accusing Tel Aviv of deceiving the world about Iran, the senior officer accused Israel of acting as a “political mannequin” in the US shop window.

Turning his ire toward Washington, Salami charged the US with spending $7 trillion on wars in the Middle East, adding that the US has been defeated with each effort. “We do not have military bases anywhere, and our presence in Syria is limited, which represents our values,” he added, referring to the source and scope of Iran’s regional influence.

Salami also praised what he called the “thunderous” October 1 missile strikes against ISIS in Syria, which Iran launched in retaliation to the September 22 terrorist attack on a military parade in Ahvaz — a southwest city in Iran — which left 25 people dead and dozens more injured.

Traditionally rocky relations between Iran and Israel hit new lows last week at the UN General Assembly, with the two countries exchanging barbs over Syria and Iran’s alleged secret nuclear weapons program.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Deadly Chinese Drones Now Lurk Above Mideast Battlefields

October 6, 2018

Deadly Chinese Drones Now Lurk Above Mideast Battlefields

Across the Middle East, countries banned from purchasing armed drones from the US due to a weapons embargo are increasingly gravitating towards Chinese defense manufacturers, according to a new report from the Associated Press, sales that “are helping expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interests.”

“The Chinese product now doesn’t lack technology, it only lacks market share,” said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military strategist and former lecturer at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. “And the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity.”

The sales are supporting China’s expansion across a region home to many strategic US military bases, as well as, future routes for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

“It’s a hedging strategy and the Chinese will look to benefit from that,” said Douglas Barrie, an aviation specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The AP notes that Chinese drones are more frequently conducting aerial operations in the skies above Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Nigeria, Yemen, Iraq, and the UAE thanks to booming sales, with more than 30 China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics’s Cai Hong 4 (Rainbow 4, or CH-4) medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles worth $700 million being sold to countries since 2014.

Chinese arms exports have expanded 38% from 2008 to 2012 and from 2013 to 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute data.

Earlier this year, a spy satellite passing above southern Saudi Arabia snapped a pictured of US surveillance drones and Chinese-manufactured armed drones, parked side by side at an airfield.

According to the Center for the Study of the Drone at New York’s Bard College, both drones were being used in the war in Yemen, has emerged as a “sort of a testing ground for drones,” said Dan Gettinger, the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Charting a Jagged Course Through the Apocalypse

October 4, 2018

Charting a Jagged Course Through the Apocalypse

Photo Source NASA’s Earth Observatory | CC BY 2.0

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop”

-Economist Herbert Stein

Those who live in the reaches of the Arctic Circle tend to convey the same humbling lesson: Mother Nature calls the shots and survival depends upon preparing for her mood swings. It’s an adage that will take on increasing relevance as history unfolds because disaster has been baked in to our future. Decades ago a whole series of events was set into motion and it may be too late to break their momentum. Civilization will be tested as large swathes of the globe become uninhabitable. While it might be tempting to seek refuge in the form of denial or nihilism, doing so won’t prevent what’s coming down the pike.

It’s Much Worse than You Think

The indicators are hard to miss. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached levels not seen for nearly a million years. Roughly half of India’s population (which tips the scales at over a billion) currently faces extreme water scarcity and within two decades India’s demand for water will likely rise to twice the available supply. Moreover, by the end of the century scientists assess that population centers across the Middle East will confront “temperature levels that are intolerable to humans.” Which is a polite way of describing a death trap. One that will probably snap shut even if emissions are somehow kept within internationally agreed upon levels.

At some point our system’s requirement for infinite economic growth will hit the limits of a finite planet. As the ensuing collision transpires there will be widespread famine, mass migration, and disease. Thus setting the stage for military conflict on a global scale. People rarely go gently into the night when their backs are thrust against a wall.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Chinese Imports Of US Crude Have “Totally Stopped” As Tariff Threats Persist

October 4, 2018

Chinese Imports Of US Crude Have “Totally Stopped” As Tariff Threats Persist

It has been roughly two months since China threatened to impose a 25% tariff on US energy imports (it eventually went back on those threats), and less than two weeks since the latest round of tariffs has been implemented. But even as China has shied away from its threats to punish the US energy industry, Reuters data are showing that imports of US oil to China have ground to a halt.

Confirming the data, Xie Chunlin, the president of China Merchants Energy Shipping Co, said on Wednesday that crude oil shipments to China have “totally stopped” as the trade war has taken its toll, reversing growth in what had been a rapidly expanding market for US shale producers.

“We are one of the major carriers for crude oil from the U.S. to China. Before (the trade war) we had a nice business, but now it’s totally stopped,” Chunlin said on the sidelines of the Global Maritime Forum’s Annual Summit in Hong Kong.

“It’s unfortunately happened, the trade war between the U.S. and China. Surely for the shipping business, it’s not good,” the CMES president said.

He also said the trade dispute was forcing China to seek soybeans from suppliers other than the United States, adding that China now bought most its soybeans from South America.

In place of US imports, China, which is the world’s largest importer of crude oil, is becoming increasingly reliant on the Middle East and Russia while it has also shifted to using Iranian tankers to bypass impending US sanctions on Iranian crude while also becoming more reliant on Iranian crude in general. But while it’s grabbing the most headlines right now, the trade fight is hardly the only source of contention between US oil producers and China, as China’s yuan-denominated crude futures contracts are beginning to show their teeth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Moscow On US Idea To Block Russian Trade: Naval Blockade Would Mean WAR

October 1, 2018

Moscow On US Idea To Block Russian Trade: Naval Blockade Would Mean WAR

In a new report, United States Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke suggested the US could use the Navy to block Russian energy from hitting Middle East markets. But the head of the Russian Senate’s Information Policy Committee, Aleksey Pushkov, said that act would mean “war” with the US.

Zinke appeared to be concerned that the real reason behind Russia’s involvement in Syria is trade expansion. Pushokov said that that is “absolute nonsense,” according to Russia Today. The idea that Russia could potentially supply energy to the Middle East, which is literally “oozing with oil,” is absolutely detached from reality, Pushkov said. Russia does not supply any energy to the region, which is itself a major oil exporter and has never announced any plans to do so.

The Russian senator added that Zinke’s statement is “on par” with Sarah Palin’s claim that she was qualified to talk about Russia since “they’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia here from Alaska.” The former Alaska governor made the statement in an interview when she was the Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 US election. -RT

Attempts to exert further pressure on Russia “are not going to end in anything good,” a member of the Russian Senate’s Defense and Security Committee, Franz Klintsevich, told journalists, according to RT. Klintsevich added that these attempts would lead “to a major scandal” at the very least, and Washington “should clearly understand it.”

The Trump administration has been seeking to replace Russia as Europe’s gas supplier by boosting exports of its liquefied natural gas, even though Russian gas is a cheaper option for Europe. The Trump Administration is also going to have a tough time convincing countries to do more business with them in light of an economically disastrous trade war and ever-increasing tariffs on imported goods.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Hints At Naval Blockade Of Russian Energy Exports Which Moscow Warns Would Be “An Act Of War”

September 30, 2018

US Hints At Naval Blockade Of Russian Energy Exports Which Moscow Warns Would Be “An Act Of War”

In a interview about fracking and the implications of making the United States less dependent on foreign sources of energy, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the Washington Examiner that the US Navy has the ability to blockade Russia from controlling energy supplies in the Middle East.

“The United States has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open, and, if necessary, to blockade… to make sure that their energy does not go to market,” Zinke said on Friday at a Consumer Energy Alliance event in Pittsburg.

The comments came as Russia, Germany and other European partners move forward on the Nord Stream II pipeline — something President Trump has vehemently opposed because of the leverage it gives Russia over Europe, and something which US officials have discussed sanctions over if Russia decides to play dirty with the pipeline.

*Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaking at an industry event on Friday. Image source: State Impact Pennsylvania*

Zinke continued, “Russia is a one trick pony,” and explained Russia’s ability to sell energy is paramount to its economic survival: “I believe the reason they are in the Middle East is they want to broker energy just like they do in eastern Europe, the southern belly of Europe,” he said.

While Russia has been engaged in military action in Syria since 2015 at the request of the Syrian government, the West has long accused Moscow of seeking a permanent presence in the Middle East to ensure oil and gas access.

In the process, Moscow and Tehran have grown closer as the two come under aggressive US sanctions and gained international pariah status. Secretary of the Interior Zinke explained of the Iran situation: “National security-wise, how are you going to deal with Iran?” Zinke asked. “Well, there are two ways.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fragility of Middle East alliances becomes ever more apparent

September 30, 2018

Fragility of Middle East alliances becomes ever more apparent

Three recent developments lay bare the fragility of Middle Eastern alliances and a rebalancing of their priorities: the Russian-Turkish compromise on an assault on the rebel-held Syrian region of Idlib, the fate of troubled Abu Dhabi airline Ettihad, and battles over reconstruction of Syria.

These developments highlight the fact that competition among Middle Eastern rivals and ultimate power within the region’s various alliances is increasingly as much economic and commercial as it is military and geopolitical. Battles are fought as much on geopolitical fronts as they are on economic and cultural battlefields such as soccer.

As a result, the fault lines of various alliances across the greater Middle East, a region that stretches from North Africa to north-western China, are coming to the fore.

The cracks may be most apparent in the Russian-Turkish-Iranian alliance but lurk in the background of Gulf cooperation with Israel in confronting Iran as well as the unified front put forward by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Russia, prevented, at least for now, a rupture with Turkey, by delaying an all-out attack on Idlib despite Iranian advocacy of an offensive. Turkey, already home to three million Syrians, feared that a Syrian-Russian assault, would push hundreds of thousands, if not millions more across its border.

If Iran was the weakest link in the debate about Idlib, it stands stronger in its coming competition with Russia for the spoils of reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria.

Similarly, Russia appears to be ambivalent towards a continued Iranian military presence in post-war Syria, a potential flashpoint given Israel’s opposition and Israeli attacks that led earlier this month to the downing of a Russian aircraft.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe Unveils “Special Purpose Vehicle” To Bypass SWIFT, Jeopardizing Dollar’s Reserve Status

September 25, 2018

Europe Unveils “Special Purpose Vehicle” To Bypass SWIFT, Jeopardizing Dollar’s Reserve Status

In a stunning vote of “no confidence” in the US monopoly over global payment infrastructure, one month ago Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas called for the creation of a new payments system independent of the US that would allow Brussels to be independent in its financial operations from Washington and as a means of rescuing the nuclear deal between Iran and the west.

Writing in the German daily Handelsblatt, Maas said “Europe should not allow the US to act over our heads and at our expense. For that reason it’s essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels that are independent of the US, creating a European Monetary Fund and building up an independent Swift system,” he wrote.

Maas said it was vital for Europe to stick with the Iran deal. “Every day the agreement continues to exist is better than the highly explosive crisis that otherwise threatens the Middle East,” he said, with the unspoken message was even clearer: Europe no longer wants to be a vassal state to US monopoly over global payments, and will now aggressively pursue its own “SWIFT” network that is not subservient to Washington’s every whim.

Many discounted the proposal as being far too aggressive: after all, a direct assault on SWIFT, and Washington, would be seen by the rest of the world as clear mutiny against a US-dominated global regime, and could potentially spark a crisis of confidence in the reserve status of the dollar, resulting in unpredictable, and dire, consequences.

However, despite the diplomatic consequences, Europe was intent on creating some loophole to the US ability to weaponize the global currency of account at will, something observed most recently as part of Trump’s latest sanctions on Iran, and as a result, late on Monday, the European Union said that it would establish a special payment channel to allow European and other companies to legally continue financial transactions with Iran while avoiding exposure to U.S. sanctions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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