Of course, Lew generalized his observations, but left his audience in no doubt that what was uppermost on his mind was the US’ “secondary sanctions” against Iran. Sure enough, two days after Lew’s speech, Wall Street Journal broke the story that the Obama administration is working on a relaxation of the “secondary sanctions” against Iran whereby offshore dollar clearing houses may be set up without the involvement of American banks so that Iran is enabled to conduct dollar transactions, while the US financial system as such does not come into direct contact with Iran.