I’ve never been a big believer in the idea that the world’s increasingly shaky monetary system will someday be replaced by some sort of new gold standard (that would be a huge admission of failure by the world’s plutocrats and some form of global money based on a basket of commodities and national currencies – that the world’s plutocrats would also control – is much more likely), but, if a gold standard does return, we’ll all probably look back at today’s news that Iran is now accepting gold in exchange for its oil as an important development in that process. The BBC filed this report on the subject earlier today:

Iran is to accept gold instead of dollars as payment for its oil, the country’s state news agency has said.

The move comes as US and European Union sanctions against Iran have made it difficult for buyers to make dollar payments to Iranian banks.

Mahmoud Bahmani, the governor of Iran’s central bank, is reported to have said that the country would accept payment in gold “without any reservation”.
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Iran has the world’s third-largest oil reserves. Crude oil is predominantly traded in US dollars, but Iran already accepts payment in other currencies.

Likely related to this announcement comes word in this WSJ story($) about the U.S. Treasury Department interceding to stop a Dubai based bank from supporting Iranian oil sales by helping the nation evade international sanctions that were put in place to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program.

According to the report, Noor Islamic Bank, partly owned by the city of Dubai and run by Sheikh Ahmed, the son of Duabai’s ruler, was believed to have handled as much as 60 percent of Iran’s oil sales last year totaling nearly $50 billion.