Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

Jordan Dinar had been linked to Pound Sterling before 1971. After that Jordan maintained an Official Rate fixed to the U.S. Dollar until 1974. During the year 1974, under the pressure of inflation, which was caused by the political fluctuations, the Dinar was made a controlled, floating currency. In 1975, the Dinar was linked to the SDR.

In late 1980s, with large currency outflows, the problem of erosion in foreign exchange reserves became very serious. Jordan responded to it by putting the Dinar on a managed float, devaluing the unit, and restricting capital outflows. Later, with the further devaluation of Dinar, it was pegged to a trade-weighted basket of currencies. A two-tier exchange rate system was introduced in July 1989. In this system, there is a fixed Official Rate applying to public sector imports of essential goods, certain medicines and remittances to Jordanians studying abroad. While a Floating Rate, which was subject to supply and demand, governed all other transactions. However, this system only lived shortly and was replaced by an Effective Rate in Fubruary 1990. This Effective Rate was officially linked to the SDR on a trade-weighted basis.
Presently, Jordan maintains a unitary exchange rate structure. The Dinar is officially pegged to the SDR, but in practice, it has been pegged to the U.S. Dollar since late 1995. The exchange rate has since remained at 0.708 (buy) and 0.710 (sell) Dinar to the dollar. The Dinar fluctuates against other currencies according to market force.

International Economics - Historial Exchange Rate Regime of Asian Countries

for a reference to history of the jordanian dinar and what they currently have it pegged to.

Experts divided on Iraq solution
But many agree that a nuanced withdrawal is needed to avoid more sectarian strife, civil war
- Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, October 9, 2006

Experts divided on Iraq solution / But many agree that a nuanced withdrawal is needed to avoid more sectarian strife, civil war
Experts analyzing how the United States can disentangle itself from the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq disagree over many aspects of strategy, but they are united in one view -- the complexity and scale of the problem defies simple solutions.

How can the United States leave without allowing the current Sunni-Shiite bloodletting to escalate into a Bosnia-style civil war or creating an even more fertile breeding ground for militant jihadists? And what can it do to stop Iran -- Iraq's Shiite neighbor and the most potent regional military power -- from filling the vacuum when American troops leave? With the current debate on Iraq framed between the intention of the Bush administration to "stay the course" and the demand by many Democratic lawmakers to withdraw, which President Bush has decried as "cut and run," is there any middle ground?

Many Iraq experts outside the government agree that the nation needs a more nuanced exit strategy, but they cannot agree on how to go about it.

"We're choosing between bad and worse," said Shibley Telhami, an expert on the Middle East at the University of Maryland.

The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel charged by Congress with reviewing Iraq policies, is expected to articulate new choices and call for changes in strategy. James Baker, the former secretary of state who is co-chairing the panel, said Sunday that those recommendations would likely be issued after the fall elections.

"Our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives ... of stay-the-course and cut-and-run," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Some say the solution is to start withdrawing American troops, now nearly 150,000 strong, from major Iraqi cities, where they are easy targets for sectarian militias and Sunni insurgents, and concentrating them instead along Iraq's borders and in the more U.S.-friendly Kurdish north. About a third of them are now stationed in Baghdad, where they come under daily attacks as they try to aid the Iraqi government's so-far-unsuccessful effort to stabilize the capital.

"We've inserted ourselves in the main cities, and we've put most of our facilities into main areas where it's hard for us to stand on the sidelines, and it's also difficult for us not to get involved in the low-level civil war that already has begun," said National Interest magazine editor Nicholas Gvosdev, who advocates pulling U.S. forces to Iraq's borders.

Gvosdev recommends sending National Guard units home immediately, and drawing down the number of regular forces in Iraq. Stationing the troops along Iraq's borders would prevent neighboring powers from sending arms and fighters into Iraq, he said.

Zachary Shore, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, said the troops should be moved to northern Iraq instead. This strategy would allow the United States to continue training Iraqi forces, while at the same time helping build up the infrastructure in the relatively successful, quasi-independent Kurdish region, he said.

"You don't reinforce failure, you reinforce success," said Shore, whose latest book, "Breeding Bin Ladens," came out Friday.

Removing American troops from most of Iraq could open the way for Iran, warned George Friedman, founder and chief executive of Strategic Forecasting, a private security consulting group in Texas. Iran already wields enormous influence over Iraq's Shiite militias in Baghdad and in the Shiite south, he said, and without the buffer of U.S. troops, it could expand its reach to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, essentially taking control of Persian Gulf oil.

"Withdrawal essentially creates Iranian hegemony. The Iranians are far and away the most powerful regional power and will be in a position to dominate the region if the U.S. goes away" and dictate the price of oil, Friedman said. "The consequences of (the region) being dominated by Tehran really matters to you as you travel around the (United States) in the car."

Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia who helped negotiate an end to the Muslim-Croat conflict, dismissed Friedman's concerns.

"Iran is already there. It already dominates the (Shiite) south, and has a huge influence with the central government in Baghdad," said Galbraith, now an expert on Iraq at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. "A U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will not increase Iran's influence because we have already turned much of the country over to the Iranians."

Galbraith advocates splitting Iraq along ethnic and religious lines, creating three independent states: a Kurdish north, a Shiite Arab south, and a largely Sunni Arab central Iraq.

This so-called three-state solution would be a natural continuation of a divide that "has already happened on the ground," said Galbraith, who visited northern Iraq last month. If the United States were to encourage Iraq to adopt it, "we should pull troops out of the southern part of Iraq tomorrow and then fairly rapidly from Baghdad," where "we're not actually doing anything to contain civil war," he said.

The United States should then encourage Iraq's Sunnis to create their own security force to defend themselves from Shiite militias and radical Sunni jihadists, said Galbraith.

But John Pike, who heads the GlobalSecurity.org military think tank in Washington, said such a solution would not work in central Iraq, because it is not religiously or ethnically homogeneous. For example, Baghdad, home to about one-fourth of Iraq's population, has an almost even number of Shiite and Sunni Arabs. Christians, ethnic Kurds and Turkomans also live in the capital.

"Any way you draw the border, you'll have an enormous number of people who will be on the wrong side," Pike said. He predicted that Sunnis also would oppose the three-state solution for economic reasons, because it would leave them without access to Iraq's oil riches, concentrated in the north and south. "All they will have is sand."

He said the U.S. military presence is the only thing that stands between the current, comparatively low-level bloodletting, which "is certainly horrific for the Iraqi people in some parts of that country," and a "genocidal civil war" that would erupt across most of the country if American troops pulled out.

Michael O'Hanlon, an Iraq expert at the Brookings Institution, said that leaving Iraq to disintegrate into "Bosnia-style ethnic cleansing" would further damage Washington's already-frayed image in the Middle East.

"Leaving aside the moral issue, if Iraq explodes into a civil war, you make a mockery of the goal of trying to help Muslims, and that makes it hard to convince Muslims around the world that we're trying to be their friends," he said. "You're breeding more international anger."

Instead, O'Hanlon said the United States must put more effort into stabilizing Iraq before it pulls its troops out: improving the Iraqi security forces and trying to disarm the militias that have infiltrated them, especially the police; helping combat unemployment as high as 75 percent; and negotiating with Iraq's neighbors to secure their assistance in trying to improve security inside the country.

Telhami argued that the U.S. presence cannot improve Iraq's stability. "It's a leap of faith, there is no evidence of that," he said, pointing out that since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, terrorist attacks on U.S. troops have increased, and as has sectarian strife.

He advocates a staged withdrawal of troops to U.S.-friendly countries in the region, such as Kuwait and Jordan.

"As long as there are American forces on the Iraqi soil, they will be seen as a problem," he said. "It might take two years to completely disentangle, but the U.S. should completely disentangle. That doesn't mean that significant withdrawal could not be completed within a year."

If the United States chose to withdraw from Iraq immediately, removing troops could take "a month, a few weeks, if you do it 24 by 7," Pike estimated.

That would not be enough time to dismantle all installed facilities and the like, "so we'd have to abandon billions of dollars of equipment," said Kalev Sepp, a defense analysis professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who travels to Iraq frequently.
What would happen afterward is much less clear.

"We've gotten into a position where staying is untenable, withdrawing is untenable, and expanding (the U.S. presence) is untenable," said Friedman. "It's the one that the American public is gonna have to sort out."

My solution . . .give them a high reval . . .give them hope. . .they will buy cars and cell phones and food . . .not ammo, guns and bombs

Originally Posted by neno

1472. to the $ Now. Propose Raise 3 zeros spots 1.472 Hummm how about that?

hmm, VERY CLOSE TO jordan and the sdr huh.

lol

Iraq's Dark Day of Reckoning
If you were a Shiite, having suffered through a brutal insurgency and an incompetent government, would you give up your weapons?
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
Oct. 16, 2006 issue - When Iraq's current government was formed last April, after four months of bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis, many voices in America and in Iraq said the next six months would be the crucial testing period. That was a fair expectation. It has now been almost six months, and what we have seen are bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis. Meanwhile, the violence has gotten worse, sectarian tensions have risen steeply and ethnic cleansing is now in full swing. There is really no functioning government south of Kurdistan, only power vacuums that have been filled by factions, militias and strongmen. It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

More waiting is unlikely to turn things around, nor will more troops. I understand the impulse of those who want to send in more forces to secure the country. I urged just such a policy from the first week of the occupation. But today we are where we are. Over the past three years the violence has spread and is now franchised down to neighborhoods with local gangs in control. In many areas, local militias are not even controlled by their supposed political ******* in Baghdad. In this kind of decentralized street fighting, 10,000 or 20,000 more troops in Baghdad will not have more than a temporary effect. Nor will new American policies help. The reason that the Democrats seem to lack good, concrete suggestions on Iraq is that the Bush administration has actually been pursuing more-sensible policies for more than a year now, trying vainly to reverse many of its errors. But what might well have worked in 2003 is too little, too late in 2006.

Iraq is now in a civil war. Thirty thousand Iraqis have died there in the past three years, more than in many other conflicts widely recognized as civil wars. The number of internal refugees, mostly Sunni victims of ethnic cleansing, has exploded over the past few months, and now exceeds a quarter of a million people. (The Iraqi government says 240,000, but this doesn't include Iraqis who have fled abroad or who may not have registered their move with the government.) The number of attacks on Shiite mosques increases every week: there have been 69 such attacks since February, compared with 80 in the previous two and a half years. And the war is being fought on gruesome new fronts. CBS News's Lara Logan has filed astonishing reports on the Health Ministry, which is run by supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. According to Logan, hospitals in Baghdad and Karbala are systematically killing Sunni patients and then dumping their bodies in mass graves.

Iraq's problem is fundamentally political, not military. Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds need a deal that each can live with. Sen. Joseph Biden has outlined an intelligent power-sharing agreement, but what he, or for that matter George Bush, says doesn't matter. Power now rests with the locals. And the Shiites and the Sunnis have little trust in one another. At this point, neither believes that any deal would be honored once the United States left, which means that each is keeping its own militias as an insurance policy. If you were a Shiite, having suffered through a brutal insurgency and an incompetent government, would you give up your weapons? If you were a Sunni, having watched government-allied death squads kill and ethnic-cleanse your people, would you accept a piece of paper that said that this government will now give you one third of Iraq's oil revenues if you disarm?

Power-sharing agreements rarely work. Stanford scholar James Fearon points out that in the last 54 civil wars, only nine were resolved by such deals. And the success stories are telling. South Africa after apartheid is perhaps the best example. Despite gaining absolute power through the ballot, the African National Congress chose to share power with its former oppressors. No whites were purged from the Army or civil service. In Iraq, of course, hundreds of thousands of Sunni soldiers and administrators were fired, leaving the country without a state but with an insurgency. And unlike South Africa, Iraq has no dominant political party. It is run by a weak and fractious coalition. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki relies on support from the very extremist groups that he must dismantle—such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

President Bush says that if America leaves Iraq now, the violence will get worse, and terrorists could take control. He's right. But that will be true whenever we leave. "Staying the course" only delays that day of reckoning. To be fair, however, Bush has now defined the only realistic goal left for America's mission in Iraq: not achieving success but limiting failure.

URL: Zakaria: Iraq's Dark Day of Reckoning - Newsweek International Editions - MSNBC.com

Hmmmmm. . .what would you call Iraq becoming the richest country in the region? A failure???

You all know that I predicted the Iraqi dinar would reval to what Jordan had about a year ago on another forum and they said I was an ***** and a few other things to along with that. It's going to be really nice to know I picked the correct value. and I can laugh all the way to the bank with that knowlegde. . But I don't care who said it but looks like my patience is going to pay off.

Like on the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor the saying is. I got a golden ticket but I don't have one I have millions.

Okay now I will go back in my corner and hide. Thanks SGS and Neno and everyone else who puts out news etc here.

I am set on $1.47. It fits to nicely in our little reval scenerio.

1472 current rate -- move decimal 3 places you get 1.47

.00068 current rate-- remove 3 zeros you get 1.47

Jordan rate-- $1.42 (alot of gasoline smuggling going on here)

Very easy to change prices in all of the stores. Just add a decimal point.

Originally Posted by willie 2

Not sure if posted. Fox News: North Korea possibly had a nuclear test.

currently on fox. apparently theyve tested a nuclear bomb.

Originally Posted by Dinar Madness

You all know that I predicted the Iraqi dinar would reval to what Jordan had about a year ago on another forum and they said I was an ***** and a few other things to along with that. It's going to be really nice to know I picked the correct value. and I can laugh all the way to the bank with that knowlegde. . But I don't care who said it but looks like my patience is going to pay off.

Like on the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor the saying is. I got a golden ticket but I don't have one I have millions.

Okay now I will go back in my corner and hide. Thanks SGS and Neno and everyone else who puts out news etc here.

Hey when this is over, will you sign my big harry chest?

Originally Posted by goldraker

Hey when this is over, will you sign my big harry chest?

dunno bout you people but IM REALLY GLAD he said chest!!

Originally Posted by texaslonghorns

I am set on $1.47. It fits to nicely in our little reval scenerio.

1472 current rate -- move decimal 3 places you get 1.47

.00068 current rate-- remove 3 zeros you get 1.47

Jordan rate-- $1.42 (alot of gasoline smuggling going on here)

Very easy to change prices in all of the stores. Just add a decimal point.