SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence. More than 9,000 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries trust us every day to exchange millions of standardized financial messages. This system is integral to the global flow of funds and the U.S. and EU have decided to use is as a tool of war against those trading with Iran: http://www.swift.com/news/press_releases/SWIFT_disconnect_Iranian_banks
How would you like to be threatened by having your bank account and credit cards frozen? This is effectively the same act against a country. How would you survive? You would have to be paid in cash or agree to trade work for food, etc. When this happens to countries, they form a bilateral trade agreement to exchange their currencies at an agreeable rate of exchange directly. This has the effect of removing the U.S. Dollar as the world currency. As that happens, the demand for U.S. Dollars will diminish and the market for U.S. debt will begin to dry up unless the interest rates rise. As that occurs, the U.S. deficit will worsen. It does not look good.
What are these guys thinking?