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Three quick points on Robert Fisk's report that the Gulf countries might dump the dollar as their currency for oil sales.

First, this story isn't new. Oil producers have been murmuring about a new currency for years. The Toronto Globe and Mail reported on this last year, for example.

Fisk's story -- if it's accurate -- indicates that those talks have progressed from abstraction to something more concrete. That's certainly not surprising, given the weakness of the dollar in recent years. (His story has been met with a flurry of denials, but Fisk is one of the better Middle East writers out there -- though, I should note, not usually a business reporter.)

Robert Fisk reports that the Gulf Arab states will stop selling oil in dollars by 2018, moving to gold in the short term and perhaps some other reserve currency in the long term. (Coincidentally -- or perhaps not -- the price of gold hit an all-time high today.)

I'm covering a Senate hearing this morning on Iran sanctions, so I don't have time to write more on this story, but I do want to highlight one particularly troubling paragraph:

The Americans... are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs... Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review.

In other words: The Middle East will be the battleground for yet another proxy war, this time between the U.S. and China.