“Reshuffling World Order” on Press TV (Iran)
It was my pleasure to join international affairs analyst Yousof Azizi based in Washington on a Press TV hosted discussion of the results of the 15th BRICS summit held in Johannesburg this past week.
I used this platform to expand on my points regarding the policy priorities of the BRICS that are evidenced by its choice of new member countries in its first major expansion since South Africa joined the founding members in 2010. These priorities are clearly to facilitate peaceful relations in what has been the most war-torn part of the world for decades (the Greater Middle East) and to assure the continued and expanded financing of the infrastructure projects which the BRICS Bank is undertaking globally to support development where it is most needed.
I emphasize that the mission of BRICS, as set out in its Declaration, is not to overthrow the institutions of global governance that were set up following WWII, namely the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and IMF) but to reform these institutions by making them more representative of today’s global distribution of economic and political power. Whereas such reform has long been demanded by individual countries of the Global South, BRICS represents a collective instrument of reform both by the moral strength of its arguments on behalf of 40% of humanity and 32% of global GDP and by way of example in its own geopolitical and lending activities.
With the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, BRICS becomes the unique global meeting place of the world’s biggest producers of hydrocarbons and the world’s biggest importers of hydrocarbons (China and India). It is thus the perfect vector for de-dollarization, since trade in hydrocarbons enthroned the dollar’s hegemonic position in the 1970s and now trade in hydrocarbons within BRICS is shifting to Yuan, UAE dirhams and other currencies. Dethroning dollar hegemony means dethroning U.S. geopolitical hegemony and shifting to a multipolar world.
See:
http://www.urmedium.net/media/video//2023/08/26/638286079056470582video.mp4
and
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023