Not the MntGoat News Letter

Major news. US to cease shipping physical dollars to Iraq.

See
(mustaqila-com) America stops the dollar transfer to Iraq
(APNews.com) Targeting Iran, US tightens Iraq’s dollar flow, causing pain

Analysis and discussion at today’s MntGoat newsletter

MntGoat’s latest on July 13, 2023 is a mixed bag, optimistic and pessimistic. It seemed like the RV was all but in the bag, awaiting the inevitable project to delete the zeros, but something’s happened to delay it.

We know the reinstatement is planned or should I say was planned. The project to delete the zeros was even announced in the Mosques on both past Fridays but where is it?

She goes on to say that she thinks entities in the US are primarily responsible for the holdup, speculating over three variations of reasoning:

• they still see too much corruption in Iraq or potential for bad actors to profit off of the RV
• they are themselves terribly corrupt and fear that pulling the trigger could reveal their corruption
• they are committed to holding out until the Oil and Gas Law is finalized and in place.

MntGoat also discusses the question: so much money has flowed into Iraq, why is the country’s infrastructure still so beat-down, and war-damage still in evidence? (Answer: corruption and provincialism)

She discusses the new fuel-swap arrangements with Iran. Iraq and Iran have established a trade where Iran provides electricity and natural gas to feed Iraq’s electricity generators (a chronic issue) and Iraq provides “black” oil (raw crude and fuel-oil, I think) in return. No dollars involved, so no sanctions-violations, they think. Personally, I think we’ll know something is fishy if the US government agrees or fails to act on it (of course it is a sanctions violation!).

MntGoat has much more, and much more depth. I strongly encourage you to visit her blog.

MntGoat has been remarkably optimistic in her last 3 or 4 newsletters. https://mntgoatnewsusa.com/latest-mnt-goat-newsletter/

A point of confusion is her repeated assertion that the dinar-dollar rate is 1000:1 when the CBI’s site still says 1310:1. I firmly believe that the plan is to soon go to 1000:1 then revalue and forex shortly after; at 1000:1 revaluing to 1:1 is an arithmetic no-brainer.

MnGoat’s newsletter includes reports that the in-country street-rate is coming down, closer and closer to the official rate. New government rules requiring in-country use of dinar surely support a stronger dinar (aka weaker dollar) on the street. Iraq has also restored some of citizen’s ability to acquire dollars so the acute pressure driving the dollar’s surge is relieved.

There’s still the substantial disconnect between the dollars needed for imports vs the dollars actually exchanged, and the elephant in the room continues to be that the extra dollars apparently flow to Iran. If the PTB know about it (how could they not?) but allow it to continue, then it must be OK with them, right?

It was a topsy-turvy week. Thursday, MntGoat posted that she had a great deal of interesting news but she wasn’t going to share it with us because it seemed that none of us cared enough about the amount of work she puts into her newsletters. She didn’t feel appreciated. She was considering dropping the newsletter altogether.

Pure speculation on my part, but I think she meant that “Free-will GIFT to Mnt Goat on PayPal” have been drying up. There is no compensation to her for sharing her wisdom and insights, but it takes a lot of time and effort (which could have been spent on family, the gasthause, etc, instead) to make sense of the news regarding the RV, and even more to construct a meaningful post to summarize it for her blog-followers. (I understand. Even as I compose this there are 10 other things that need my attention but aren’t getting it.)

However, MntGoat followed up a few hours later with a normal newsletter.

If you can spare $5 or $10, consider sharing it with MntGoat. Since we can’t offer feedback directly, it’s the only way I can think of to tell her that we do appreciate all the hard work, sacrifice, and expertise that go into every MntGoat post.

This is the link that MntGoat includes in her newsletter to give a “Free-will GIFT to Mnt Goat on PayPal”: https://paypal.me/MntGoatNewsletter?locale.x=en_US

Please be as generous as you can be!

MntGoat posted today but the old link doesn’t get you to the newest post anymore. She’s added a new “page” under her domain. Here’s the new link.

I can see by the surge in visitors to this site that MntGoat hasn’t posted in a few days. Her blog is here. In years past early May has seen her very busy with personal and community/cultural affairs; I imagine that is the case this year as Covid restrictions are lessened.

The election drama continues with al-Sadr maintaining his strong stand against the Coordination Framework (CF) and Nori al-Maliki. This is a fascinating development in Iraqi politics where the “majority” Shiites are themselves fractured and do not represent a single bloc. After the Sadr coalition was blocked from nominating a Prime Minister by Maliki’s quorum-based tactics, al-Sadr threw down the gauntlet by giving CF 40 days during Ramadan to try to establish a majority government themselves with no interference from Sadr. CF has failed because those aligned with Sadr (a broad coalition across Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite MPs) have remained committed to Sadr’s “Iraq for Iraqis” agenda (as opposed to CF’s “Iraq for Iran and Shiites, and we’ll throw you others a bone”). I have read that after the 40 days expires this week, al-Sadr next calls upon the “Independent Ministers” (mostly Kurds and Sunnis) to form a majority-bloc in Parliament — this really means to align with either Sadr or CF in such numbers that the bloc represents 2/3 plus one of the Parliament (they need a full 2/3 to make the quorum required to nominate the PM).

The formation of the Iraqi government by constitutional means is certainly a primary obstacle to any movement to re-instate the dinar. Only after this ‘stability’ and ‘security’ milestone is attained can the PTB, including the CBI, seriously push for the re-instatement.

The next major impediment IMHO is Iraq’s failure to fully resolve the Kurdish question. We all know the Constitution and the Law says that Kurdish oil is Iraq’s oil, but the Kurds have continued to operate their oil fields as if they are an independent Kurdish state rather than a region of Iraqi citizens. Iraq since 2003 has treated Kurdistan both ways as it has been convenient to do so, plus Iraq has repeatedly failed to implement article 140. Iraq must fully resolve the constitutional issues of Kurdistan and Kurdish oil.

A slow mid-year by any measure.

The real MntGoat has posted systematically. MntGoat’s blog is here. She says, and I agree, that progress has been made in areas that support the inevitable IQD re-instatement. Also, we read of an emerging Middle Eastern trading coalition, including Iraq, which plans to periodically recalculate the relative value of each member-country’s currency — can’t do that if IQD isn’t floating!! January, 2022, is a likely target but must be preceded by “the project to delete zeroes” in early December.

Election: The Iraqi federal election has gone well but results are not final as vote-recounts proceed and the risk is still high that Iran-backed Shia militias (who lost support and representation) will cause trouble (as they regularly threaten to do). al-Sadr has consistently and effectively acted to bring all the militias under government control. Corruption was a major election theme and anti-corruption efforts continue to gain support.

Sovereignty: Iraq’s ability to manage its own affairs continues to suffer, and they publically reject true hands of friendship.

Economy: Living conditions in Iraq prompt increasing numbers of people to flee at any cost. Too bad for them since after a perilous journey they are not eagerly embraced at their destination.

Security: Iraq’s ability to contain the terrorists in its midst remains questionable but occasionally effective. Indeed, ‘civil’ society has a different meaning there as towns attack their neighbors for ‘justice’.

A floating and stable Iraqi currency should bring many benefits to the country which would improve the lives of all Iraqis. Fingers crossed.