SWIFT Severs Iran Ties, Cuts Tehran Off From Global Financial System

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

BRUSSELS — Iran was effectively cut off from global commerce on Thursday, when the company that handles financial transactions said it was severing ties with many Iranian banks - part of an international effort to discourage Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

The action enforces European Union sanctions because global financial transactions are impossible without using SWIFT, and it will go a long way toward isolating Iran financially.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is a banking hub crucial to oil, financial transactions and other trades.

"Disconnecting banks is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for SWIFT," said Lazaro Campos, chief executive of SWIFT. "It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74064.html

[hatrack]

1. Good thing they don't have access to money transfer systems like hawala, so that they can't . . .

Oh, sorry.

Never mind!

[AngryAmish]

2. It actually is a giant pain in the ass for them

Hawala system does not have billions of dollars floating around in it to finance large size import and export of oil. The sanctions regime will be broken (like Saddam Hussein did) but it is expensive for them to do it. Will it change their behavior? no. But let them suffer.

[Shadowflash]

3. Yay!

Another excuse for oil companies to hike gas prices. They'll find a way to tie it together, just watch.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. The politicization of SWIFT is incredibly short-sighted.

This has never been done before in the 38 years SWIFT has been around. Not against the Soviet Union, not against China, not against apartheid South Africa, not against Gaddafi, not against Saddam Hussein. SWIFT moves from becoming a neutral implement of international banking to becoming a pawn in Israel and the West's campaign against Iran.

Credit goes to United Against a Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group whose board includes former CIA head James Woolsey, former Mossad head Meir Dagan, self-hating Arab colonial warmonger Faud Ajami, and former Bush Jr. Homeland Security advisor Frances Townsend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Against_Nuclear_Iran

[Purveyor]

5. You are spot on with your assessment. +1

[Nihil]

8. +1 (n/t)

[harun]

10. +1

[Fool Count]

6. SWIFT is just a secure messaging network used mostly (but not exclusively) for

interbank transactions. It is a convenient, but not the only way to transfer money. Bank transfers can be also done via
other communication channels - e-mail, fax, telephone, even regular mail. So saying that SWIFT ban will cut Iran off
from global financial system is a massive overstatement. It will cause serious inconvenience for small and medium-size
businesses in Iran and doing business with Iran ad for individuals who wire money in and out of Iran, but alternative channels
should emerge fairly quickly and at minimal cost. SWIFT seriously endangers its international monopoly by politicizing its
operations. If its giving access to US "anti-terrorist" snooping software to all its data and allowing US government to seize
funds being transferred between two foreign country wasn't enough to cause concern among the member banks, that will.

[nanabugg]

7. Great way to win hearts and minds.

Persians have been dealing without electronic money transfers long before we had a history.

[librechik]

9. That won't have any effect on oil prices at all.

Don't worry