War, What Is it Good for? Iraq to Deal Oil in Euros

You may remember that among the million and one reasons why we may have "really" gone into Iraq was this one, embraced mostly by alleged conspiracy theorists and silly leftists who thought that the invasion might have something to do with oil and the dollar:  

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- A U.N. panel on Monday approved Iraq's plan to receive oil-export payments in Europe's single currency after Baghdad decided to move the start date back a week.

Members of the Security Council's Iraqi sanctions committee said the panel's chairman, Dutch Ambassador Peter van Walsum, would inform U.N. officials on Tuesday of the decision to allow Iraq to receive payments in euros, rather than dollars.

Today, there is a lot of chatter about this:

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

Nobody knows for sure that this is happening, but if it is, it's a profound change, and one that may have simply been put off by our little six year adventure in the middle east.

Ian Welsh unpacks what this would mean for all of us over at C&L. Shorter Ian: for a lot of reasons, "it will hurt."