Seen through this lens, the Middle East was never simply an energy-producing region. It became the financial engine of an international order.
Successive interventions across the region should be viewed collectively rather than individually. The Iraq War, the NATO intervention in Libya and the prolonged conflict in Syria are episodes that, despite having differing immediate causes and legal justifications, had the cumulative effect of weakening or fragmenting states capable of independently influencing the regional balance of power.
These successive interventions reflect a broader strategic vision of maintained hegemony over the region.
Within this Neoconservative-led foreign policy framework, Israel occupies a pivotal position. The Western empire has contended to maintain Israel’s qualitative military superiority to enforce the wider American-led regional security architecture by ensuring that no regional rival can rise independently. Successive American administrations have consistently regarded maintaining regional hegemony as a vital national interest.
The Carter Doctrine made this explicit by declaring that any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf would be regarded as an assault on vital American interests. Subsequent decades saw an expanded American military presence across the Gulf, destructive wars and interventions, all reflective of the conviction that the security of Middle Eastern energy routes was inseparable from the security of the empire’s economic order.
Iran now represents the first and most serious challenge to that century-old architecture.
Iran’s Military Win Is Seismic
When Iran struck American bases in February, sustained intense and wide-scale attacks on Israel and closed the Strait of Hormuz – it seized power away from the Western empire in a way never seen since the destruction of the Caliphate. This is seismic, this is historic, transformative and colossal. Tectonic plates are being wrenched apart.
Never before have American bases sustained such devastating destruction; never before has America lost control of the most vital oil trading route, and never before has Israel been seriously punished for its crimes.
The centre of gravity is the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately one-fifth of globally traded oil and a substantial share of internationally traded liquefied natural gas normally pass through this narrow waterway. The credible reality of prolonged disruption will affect energy stocks, reserves and ultimately supplies across the world economy, with subsequent shocks and blowouts impossible to contain.
What is more significant is that sustained leverage over this maritime chokepoint would elevate Tehran to a genuine world power. Influence and power over the world’s principal energy corridor would reshape diplomatic calculations in Beijing, Moscow, Brussels, neighbouring states and throughout Asia.
If Gulf governments increasingly conclude that Iran possesses greater capacity to shape regional events than outside powers, the balance of influence established over the past century would begin to shift and already has. Such a transformation would also weaken the most fundamental foundation of the petrodollar system by reducing Washington’s ability to shape regional energy policy through its traditional alliances in its own interest, i.e enforcement of energy trade in the dollar.
Whether these trends prevail remains uncertain as the empire will fight to resist them; what is beyond dispute, however, is that any enduring change in the balance of power around the Gulf would carry consequences far beyond the Middle East itself.
If Iran can successfully maintain control of Hormuz, expel America from its borders and continue to punish Israel for its crimes, then it may change policy and seek to perform nuclear tests in the future and establish itself as the regional hegemon and world power. This is the sum of all fears for America and its empire.
America Fights for Oil, Blood and Empire and Cannot Accept a Seismic Loss in the Middle East
Over decades, Western powers developed security alliances, military bases, intelligence networks and economic relationships designed to ensure that the world’s most important energy reserves remained integrated into an international order centred on the US dollar. Governments that aligned with this order received military protection, diplomatic backing and investment. Governments that fundamentally challenged it often faced sanctions, isolation, covert pressure or military confrontation.
This is why American political, economic and military strategy cannot accept such a seismic and sudden loss of power, unimaginable only a few months ago.
Financial Winter: Impact will blow by August
The calm in financial markets is an illusion.
Oil prices remain lower not because the crisis has ended, but because America and its allies have been flooding the market with emergency reserves built up over decades. The world is living off its strategic insurance policy.
But that policy is running out.
The United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1983, while global commercial and government inventories continue to decline. The International Energy Agency has coordinated unprecedented emergency releases, yet its Executive Director, Fatih Birol, warned that the oil market could enter the “red zone” in July and August as peak summer demand collides with rapidly depleting stocks. (Reuters)
