MNT GOAT: "Beyond the Hype: The Real Road to Iraq’s Currency Reinstatement", PART . 2

 😊There are a few articles that struck me as VERY important in today’s news discussion. The first one is titled “IRAQ IS QUIETLY DISTANCING ITSELF FROM IRAN. HOW IS BAGHDAD BUILDING A BALANCED FOREIGN POLICY?”  For more than two decades, Iraq has been trapped between foreign occupation and Iranian hegemony, navigating foreign policy without a clear identity and exploited as a tool rather than a state. 

However, in recent months since the Trump administration took power in the US, and particularly since the events in Syria and the transformations taking place there, have opened a rare strategic window for Baghdad to quietly redraw its regional positioning from Iran with measured steps.

 Baghdad today is not turning against anyone, but it also no longer accepts its decisions being dictated by those outside its borders. We already witnessed the move to redevelop Iraqi bombed out refineries which are now producing their own petrol and actually announced for the first time since 2003 they are exporting it. 

So this move gets Iraq independent of Iranian petrol sales. We are also witnessing the rebuilding of the electric grid that they say will be completed in 2026 using the LNG for fuel, getting Iraq fully off of the Iranian grid. While temporarily tied to the Saudi and Turkey grids for power they can not yet produce.

I will say the largest sticky point today with Iraq is these Iranian backed militia. They call themselves the

😊Another article titled “BETWEEN IMF RECOMMENDATIONS AND BAGHDAD’S AMBITIONS… IRAQ PLANS A NEW ECONOMY”. Prime Minister’s advisor, Mazhar Mohammed Saleh, confirmed on Monday that the government’s reform policy has not deviated from the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund.

 While explaining that the government seeks to transform the rentier economy into a diversified, productive economy. “Despite the significant financial exposure to oil revenues, which has made the financing of public spending, especially investment, dependent on oil price fluctuations and the oil asset cycle. 

However, it can be said that Iraq possesses promising economic components if they are employed within a realistic and gradual development vision,” Saleh said in a statement to the official media, followed by “Al-Mutalaa”.

 He added, “Strengthening the non-oil sector requires a real shift from a rentier economy to a diversified productive economy, something the current government is seeking to achieve within the framework of its government program. This transformation is no longer just rhetoric or intentions, but has taken on concrete manifestations on the ground.

Yes, we have known for a long time that it as been the US as the driving force behind Iraq to get off the sole oil revenues (rentier economy) and on to a “diversified productive economy”. 

 This has been its foreign policy towards Iraq. I will also say that it has been the US and its push in Iraq to get this done, that is the agent of change to move them ahead. We must also remember that Iraq needs investment money and much of this money would not flow into Iraq until these UN resolutions were completed. 

They were completed in 2022. This also coincided with Al-Sudani being elected as the new prime minister. His visions evolved into the “New Development Road Project” and it is this project that is his “pet project” that he wants to see to the end before the end of his second term, should be he be reelected next year. The point I want to make here is that there is a evolution going on here in Iraq. Can you see it? This drastic change had to happen, according to the new foreign policy for Iraq.

Yes, the foreign policy changed since G.W. Bush’s administration and Dr Shabibi’s time. Do you really think they were going to reinstatement the currency without these changes occurring? 

For the IMF and the US Treasury these changes are essential to bring the IQD rate high, high enough to be included in the basket of currencies they plan to shortly move out when they reinstate the dinar. 

In the high-level futuristic thinking for Iraq it is to be the financial hinge pin for the middle east. How much longer will it take to complete the Development Road Project enough to see major revenue streams I can not tell you, but we see it won’t be long.