by Tyler Shipley
Shipley, Tyler. "Currency Wars: Oil, Iraq and the Future of US Hegemony," Studies in Political Economy 79, Spring 2007.
The provocative thesis of Tyler Shipley’s “Currency Wars: Oil, Iraq, and the Future of US Hegemony” is that the war in... more
The provocative thesis of Tyler Shipley’s “Currency Wars: Oil, Iraq, and the Future of US Hegemony” is that the war in Iraq may have been motivated by oil interests, but not in the manner described by most critics. Rather, Shipley argues that the war is about preserving dollar hegemony in the international oil market. The rise of the euro, together with actions by individual states, have led to the perception by the Bush administration that the US dollar is under threat. And it is this perception, Shipley explains, that underpins the motivation for war in Iraq. By preventing OPEC from abandoning the US dollar in favour of the euro, the Iraq war has also ensured a continued flow of seigniorage revenues arising from the dominance of the US dollar within OPEC.
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