An excellent piece by @GebeilyM on squaring the circle for #Iraq, ie to continue buying gas & electricity from #Iran despite US sanctions. The solution is for Iraq to pay for Iranian gas & electricity in IQD,

news.yahoo.com/iraq-sets-loop…

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record the purchases in a ledger & in the process build credit for Iran to use “exclusively to buy humanitarian goods” from outside Iraq.

At issue are #Iran’s $12bn annual exports to #Iraq: $6bn in services (includes gas & electricity),

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& $6bn in goods. In the Iranian year ending 03/19 this $6bn in goods grew to $9bn (could be increased buying ahead of sanctions taking effect in 11/18, huge drop in Iranian Rial made goods extra attractive, + probably some reclassification of goods/services)

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A large part of the exported goods is settled in cash in IQD, which (1) is untraceable, (2) easily convertible to $.

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This leaves about $6-$8b (in IQD which is easily convertible to $), that will be recorded as Iran’s credit on the ledger to use “exclusively to buy humanitarian goods”.

It would be interesting to see what kind of humanitarian goods will be bought for $6-$8bn.

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