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War On Iran: Energy War Moves From Disruption To Destruction
The war on Iran continues to be the most important issue currently moving the world.
Israel and the U.S. are continuing their assassination campaign of Iranian officials. It was confirmed today that Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the house of his daughter. The strike caused several dozens of additional casualties. Larijani was a highly capable pragmatist, not a hardliner. His death is a loss for everyone who seeks peace in the Middle East.
Two of the leaders of the Iran’s voluntary Basji militia were also killed in Israeli airstrikes as was Iran’s Minister for Intelligence, Esmaeil Khatib.
None of these deaths will lower Iran’s will or capability to resist. It knows that it has is able to throttle the global economy via its control of the Strait of Hormuz and thus has the upper hand in any long term conflict. A some point the U.S. will have to agree (archived) with Iran’s end-of war conditions:
Iran’s strategic objective now is to impose such high costs on the United States and the Gulf states that Trump will opt for a cease-fire that includes a restriction on future Israeli actions. In essence, Iran wants to force him to choose between Israel’s security interests and the stability of global markets. The bottom line is that the war Trump started has no good ending.
Yet Israel today does not feel bound by any restrictions. It has just launched an attack, with U.S. backing, on Iran’s major South Pars gas field and other Iranian energy installations:
Israel has just bombed Iran’s largest natural gas processing facility in Bushehr Province. Israel stated that it conducted this attack in full coordination with the United States.
The attack is consistent with Israel’s strategy of aiming to destroy not only Iran’s military and military industries, but also its industrial base and its economy. Israel’s objective is not regime change but state collapse.
In this particular case there is I believe an additional motivation behind the Israeli attack. Iran has repeatedly indicated that if its energy infrastructure is attacked, this crosses a bright red line and that it will retaliate with attacks on energy infrastructure throughout the Persian Gulf.
If Iran does indeed respond in this manner, the prospects of direct participation in this war by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states increases significantly. This is exactly what Israel would like to see, and would also explain why the US, which previously counseled against such attacks, now supports them and participates in their execution.
This attack is not only a demonstration of US-Israeli capabilities, but also of US-Israeli strategic failure and arguably of growing desperation as well.
Iran’s gas production is mostly used domestically. Its electricity production largely depends on its gas infrastructure. The strike is also a hit against Turkey which receives 15% of its gas consumption from Iran. Iraq will be hit hard too as its electricity production also depends on Iranian gas. A spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Qatar condemned the attack.
The most rational response for Iran will be to hit Israel’s energy infrastructure. Strikes on Haifa and Israeli gas facilities will come too but Iran’s immediate response, as promised, were evacuation orders for five energy installation in its neighboring Persian Gulf countries:
🔸SAMREF Refinery – Saudi Arabia
🔸Al Hosn Gas Field – UAE
🔸Jubail Petrochemical Complex – Saudi Arabia
🔸Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex & Mesaieed Holding (Chevron-affiliated) – Qatar
🔸Ras Laffan Refinery (Phases 1 & 2) – Qatar.
According to Bloomberg the facilities are being evacuated. Energy prices in the commodity future market have risen in consequence of the strikes even though they are, due to manipulations, still much lower than real world prices (archived):
The growing disruption to supplies has driven a number of regional price benchmarks to all-time highs, even as global marker Brent has fallen back to just above $100 a barrel after jumping to nearly $120 in the early stages of the Iran war.
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The price of a barrel of oil in Oman — which exports from ports outside the Strait of Hormuz — soared to nearly $154 on Tuesday, driven by intense competition for the small volumes still leaving the Middle East.
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“Right now it feels like the paper and the physical market has dislocated,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank. “[This is] the biggest disruption since the 1970s and Brent can barely hold above $100.”
The $100bbl is for light sweet crude while the market needs heavier variants as well as processed products:
Current spot prices for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel on the West Coast appear unhinged at $147/bbl; $162-$170/bbl; and $186/bbl until one considers that refiners in China, India, Japan and South Korea face physical crude costs that top $150-$155/bbl.
The strike on energy facilities in Iran has opened another level on the economic front of the war.
Blocking ship from passing Hormuz is disruptive. Striking energy facilities is destructive.
It will take a long time to repair the damage.
Back in 2025, I wrote two comments on MoA about the petrodollar, and I covered the extensive history of America waging wars against anyone that challenge either the dollar or the petrodollar, including Europe! I believe they’re still relevant, so here’s an edited version with the combined information from both comments.
The USD’s reserve currency status is not an exorbitant burden, despite attempts by economists like Pettis to whitewash it as some kind of White Man’s Burden. One way in which the US creates demand for dollars is by forcing other countries to trade a crucial commodity of industrialized society, oil, exclusively in dollars, leading to the creation of the petrodollar.
1/ Syria
Syria wanted to get off dollars in February 2006 and a December 2006 US cable leaked to Wikileaks shows that a regime-change plot is already in motion.
“Syria picks euros over dollars, Syria has switched all of the state’s foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States.” Al Jazeera, 14 Feb 2006
“INFLUENCING THE SARG IN THE END OF 2006”, Wikileaks
2. (S) As the end of 2006 approaches, Bashar appears in some ways stronger than he has in two years. The country is economically stable (at least for the short term), internal opposition the regime faces is weak and intimidated, and regional issues seem to be going Syria,s way, from Damascus, perspective.
“Israel admits striking suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007” BBC, 21 March 2018
2/ North Korea (DPRK)
North Korea had good relations with the EU until 2003. As it turns out, North Korea wanted to ditch the USD for the euro in 2002 (“North Korea embraces the euro”, BBC, 1 December, 2002). EU’s officially stated reason for cooling relations with North Korea was North Korea’s nuclear program (North Korea withdrawing from the NPT in 2003), but North Korea was already developing nukes as early as the 1960s, well before 2003.
3/ Libya
Libya initially abandoned the dollar for the euro, then moved onto ditching both the euro and the dollar in 2008 in favor of a gold-backed dinar. We all know what happened to Gaddafi in 2011.
“Libya: another neocon war”, The Guardian, 21 Apr 2011, referencing a blog post from Ellen Brown, an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, “LIBYA: ALL ABOUT OIL, OR ALL ABOUT BANKING?”
The US department of justice (DOJ) has submitted a written defence of the US role in this new war in Libya to the US Congress. The DOJ claims the war serves the US national interest in regional stability and in maintaining the credibility of the United Nations. Who knew?
Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that ‘[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.’ According to a Russian article titled ‘Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Gaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar’, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the US and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa. […] If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank [created by the rebels in March] joins the BIS, whether the nationalised oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and healthcare continue to be free.
4/ Iraq
Iraq ditched dollars for euros in October 2000. Saddam Hussein was deposed in April 2003.
“Iraq nets handsome profit by dumping dollar for euro” The Guardian, 16 Feb 2003
A bizarre political statement by Saddam Hussein has earned Iraq a windfall of hundreds of million of euros. In October 2000 Iraq insisted on dumping the US dollar – ‘the currency of the enemy’ – for the more multilateral euro.
“Iraq: the case for decisive action” The Guardian, 19 Jan 2003
Military intervention in the Middle East holds many dangers. But if we want a lasting peace it may be the only option
A war with Iraq has become more likely in the past week. Thursday’s discovery of undeclared poison gas shells was insufficient to trigger war alone. But here was the first concrete, and predictable, confirmation that Iraq’s co-operation with Hans Blix’s UN weapons inspectors has been less than complete. And Saddam Hussein’s defiant speech on Friday even disappointed those who still hope that the Iraqi leader might choose comfortable exile in Libya or Belarus.
5/ Venezuela
Venezuela under Maduro wanted to price oil in non-USD currencies like euros, yuan and ruble in 2017:
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“Venezuela publishes oil prices in Chinese currency to shun U.S. dollar” Reuters, September 15, 2017
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“Venezuela Stops Accepting Dollars for Oil Payments Following U.S. Sanctions, Oil traders have begun converting their invoices to euros” WSJ, Sept. 13, 2017
The US backs Juan Guiado’s self-declaration as Venezuela’s interim president in 2019.
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“Venezuela opposition leader declares himself interim president, Maduro severs ties with the US, after Trump, among other leaders recognised Juan Guaido as acting president.” Al Jazeera, 24 Jan 2019
And now with Maduro and his wife abducted by the second Trump administration (“US plans to ‘run’ Venezuela and tap its oil reserves, Trump says, after operation to oust Maduro” AP, January 3, 2026), America has achieved some success in keeping another country under the thumb of the dollar system.
6/ Iran
Iran was playing with fire when it started to move away from the dollar and towards the euro.
“Iran switches from dollar to euro for official reporting currency” Reuters, April 18, 2018
LONDON (Reuters) – Iran will start reporting foreign currency amounts in euros rather than U.S. dollars, state media said on Wednesday as part of the country’s effort to reduce its reliance on the U.S. currency due to political tension with Washington.
The new policy could encourage government bodies and firms linked to the state to increase their use of the euro at the expense of the dollar.
Central bank governor Valiollah Seif said last week that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had welcomed his suggestion of replacing the dollar with the euro in foreign trade, as the “dollar has no place in our transactions today”.
Tehran has been trying for years to move away from the dollar, although much of the country’s international trade is still conducted in dollars and ordinary Iranians use them for travel and savings.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to exit a 2015 nuclear deal Iran made with world powers unless it is revised. U.S. sanctions will resume unless Trump issues new “waivers” to suspend them on May 12.
Bank transactions involving the dollar are already difficult for Iran because legal risks make U.S. banks unwilling to do business with Tehran. Foreign firms can be exposed to sanctions if they do Iranian deals in dollars, even if the operations involve non-U.S. branches.
As a result, France will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its goods later this year to keep its trade out of reach of U.S. sanctions, the head of state-owned French investment bank Bpifrance said in February.
By the time of the 2026 hot war between Iran and America, Iran has learned that the euro and Europeans are unreliable (Europeans prioritize American interests), so Iran has decided on a different course of action to hit America where it hurts the most, by considering the option to only allow ships that sell oil in Chinese yuan to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
7/ Europe
The 1990s Balkan (Yugoslav) war was instigated by the US to keep the Euro currency from potentially challenging USD supremacy.
“US Imperialism and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia”, Ronald W. Cox, Department of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
The development of the Clinton Doctrine, as well as the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance document, provided the geostrategic underpinnings for US policies in the former Yugoslavia. Contemporary US policies in Europe are rooted in the effort by the United States to maintain its influence as the dominant military power in the region, relying on the continuation and expansion of NATO to forestall any efforts by European powers or the European Union to create a separate defense organization independent of US influence. During the last year of the Bush Administration, US State Department and Treasury Department officials worried that the European move to create the Euro could have serious political and economic consequences for US interests in the region. The political consequences included the possible emergence of a defense organization outside US control. At the same time, US officials were concerned that the Euro could pose an economic threat to the international position of the dollar, a possibility that led the Treasury Department to warn against the establishment of new EC institutions that would bypass the traditional relationship between the US government and the finance ministers of the larger EC states. At the centerpiece of such concern is the importance of US and European trade, which totals about $1 trillion a year, and US direct investment in Western Europe, which accounts for about 40% of all US foreign investment and provides more than three-million US-based jobs (Nelson 1993, pp. 81–84).
The foundation of the euro currency was originally predicated on the participating governments’ deficits staying under the threshold of 3% of GDP (Maastricht Treaty). Break that threshold and you undermine faith in the euro. How can you make a government exceed that threshold? War. The entirety of the NATO army in Europe is way more than enough to fight the tiny Balkan war, but the cost of fighting the Balkan war was severely elevated because NATO’s commanding authority lies with the US and the US insists on shifting US troops all the way from America to fight a war on European soil (80% of NATO troops were flown across the Atlantic from the US). The costs, of course, were borne by all NATO members. This point was made by Wen Tiejun (the video is in Chinese).
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I’m not trying to defend the euro here. I’m simply showing the hierarchy in the US-Europe relationship. Europe is a junior partner of American imperialism and gets a substantial share of the spoils that goes to the US. However, whenever the Europeans think that they are equal to the US and can take a slice of the pie from the Americans, the Americans are quick to remind the Europeans and everyone else that those who adopt anything other than the USD, even the euro, as a reserve currency or a currency for trading petroleum will be taught a violent lesson.
8/ Global South
Trump is acutely aware of the importance of the dollar hegemony, hence his threat against Global South countries attempting to dedollarize at the very beginning of his second administration.
“Trump threatens BRICS with tariffs if they replace US dollar, US President Donald Trump has threatened BRICS nations with 100% tariffs if they replace the US dollar as reserve currency. He has also threatened Canada and Mexico with tariffs.” DW, January 31, 2025
US President Donald Trump threatened BRICS member states with 100% tariffs on Thursday to dissuade them from replacing the US dollar as reserve currency.
Trump had made a similar statement right after winning the November 2024 elections.
“We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs,” he said on his Truth social media platform.
“There is no chance that BRICS will replace the US dollar in international trade, or anywhere else, and any country that tries should say hello to tariffs, and goodbye to America!” he added.
I know information-dense comments are skipped over, but this is more about consolidating my investigations and providing myself with an easy reference. Missing links are in my Substack.
Death to America
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Posted by: All Under Heaven | Mar 18 2026 21:16 utc | 229
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