How war and oil keep feeding each other — and the rest of us pay for it.
Strait Talk
An internal dialog on war and energy
As of this printing, Iran controls one of the world’s most important waterways, the Strait of Hormuz. Millions of oil and gas ships pass through it every single year, and predictably, the Iranians are keen to weaponize it.
Iran has stopped all ships passing through the strait, causing the price of a barrel of oil to soar to $120, the highest price a barrel of oil has sold since 2008, when it was $148. Now the Iranians are saying, “Buckle up, pricks. We’re gonna send this baby flying to $200 a barrel.”
So with the Strait shut down, all the oily boys like Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are like, “F*ck if we can’t transport our oil, that means we’ve got to store it, but we’re running out of storage, which means we’ve got to shut down our oil fields because we’ve nowhere to put any more.”
Now India and China, who are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern oil, are turning to people like Dracula’s second cousin, Vladimir Putin, who’s like, “Well, well, well, look who’s crawling back. Thanks for your money. We’re going to use it to escalate the war with Ukraine.”
To make matters worse, the US and Israel are bombing Iran’s oil infrastructure, creating massive plumes of toxic vapor that innocent Iranian civilians are breathing in. And in response, Iran is using drones to destroy the oil infrastructure in the Gulf states. And threatening to shut the whole Strait down with sea mines.
So the global markets are going mental. Countries around the world have released 400 million barrels of oil they’ve been keeping in reserve in order to bring the price of oil down. That worked for a bit, but it’s just a band-aid, not a solution.
And now Trump is starting to panic, because the only thing he cares about is the global markets, not – evidently — the freedom and dignity of the Iranian people. Because Trump went ahead and left Iran in the hands of the dead Ayatollah’s son, who’s incredibly pissed off and probably quite likes the idea of building a nuclear weapon.
Meanwhile, the super-rich shipping dudes still need to protect their profit margin. Expect the price of food, utilities, and transport to go through the roof. But what about turning to renewable energy? And achieving net zero?
We know the answer, don’t we? Say it after me, guys: “It’s too expensive.”
But wait! There was a report just published in March 2026 that shows that transitioning to a net zero economy would cost less than a single oil crisis. Let me put that another way. If we spent all of the money we’re about to spend on rising bills to line the pockets of oil interests on new technologies, it could pay for our entire economy to go net zero.
Which means we not only wouldn’t be choking to death on fumes like the people in Tehran currently are, we also would no longer be reliant on dictators, autocrats and psychopaths who currently control our energy.
We are being ripped off, people, and the cost is on us in the form of money and literal lives.
Cody Dahler (@mccodydahler) is a UK comedian, writer, and podcast host known for political satire and commentary.
Oily Dealings
From nuclear diplomacy to oil profits, the slippery math of energy politics.
“…A far greater interest in importance to me as president is stopping an evil empire Iran from having nuclear weapons and destroying the Middle East and indeed the world.” ~ Donald Trump 3/12/26
Anyone else see a problem with that statement?
Because in 2015, Barack Obama negotiated a landmark diplomatic deal called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The US agreed to remove sanctions on Iran, and in exchange, Iran agreed to let UN inspectors into their facilities, to ensure they are not up to anything funny with uranium.
Everything was going smoothly, until Trump came into office. He called the deal “horrible” and “one-sided”, and that it failed to curb Iran’s regional “malign influence”. In a move backed by Israel and Saudi Arabia (and opposed by basically the rest of the world), he withdrew in 2018 and restored sanctions on Iran. With the deal off, Iran started to refine uranium again.
So now we’ve started a war to stop them again from building nukes and endangering the world. Meanwhile, Trump explained in a Truth Social post March 12th:
“The United States is the largest oil producer in the world by far. So when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” [ibid.]
Do we, though?
It’s true we are the largest oil producer in the world. We don’t have the largest oil reserves, which means which means we’re burning through it faster than most other countries, but he’s right. We have a ton of oil, and we will make a lot of money from it. Not you or me — but the oil executives, they will make a lot of money.
And some elected officials will also make money, especially the ones that take donations from the oil companies. This way, they can get us into wars that make oil prices soar, and then they both make boatloads of cash.
But not us. We’ll all pay more for gas, shipping, food, everything. So we’ll lose money but the good news is, America’s rich people are way richer than every other country’s rich people. We’re number one! Feels great, doesn’t it?
Chris (@letsdiscusssomething) is a progressive American content creator known for his daily “concise summations” of political news.
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📝 Images in this post via Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa), UN diplomat, humanitarian, and human rights advocate specializing in global conflict prevention and social justice.
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