He writes that the region is not very important to the USA. It's not, but it is a strategically important area, not only in terms of its location, at the nexus of Asia, Africa and Europe, but also because of the oil there.
Now the US is not dependent on Middle Eastern Oil, but Japan, China and other countries are. So controlling the region will mean a lever of power over those regions.
At present, gasoline prices in China have risen by 11% since the war started. In the U.S., they have risen by 33%.
The U.S. is dependent on oil and the oil market is global. Even if the U.S. is a net exporter of oil, Americans still pay increased prices for pretty much everything as a result and the economy suffers. The only way around this would be a scheme in which domestic oil producers are forced to sell to American refiners at pre-war prices, similar to the "National Energy Program" that was tried in Canada during the '80's. (Spoiler: It didn't turn out well.)
Yes, the U.S. is less likely to see its pumps run dry and U.S. oil companies are going to be very happy with the increased prices. However, unless it goes the NEP route, U.S. companies are going to export more oil creating shorter supply at home. Americans will pay the same high prices everyone else will be paying. As we're seeing now, the U.S. might actually see even higher price increases than countries like China.
Imagine if the US government diverted the billions spent on this war into building out green energy infrastructure.
If everyone had electric cars charging from solar then Iran's strait gambit would be much less effective.
American citizens have known since 1973 that their dependence on oil puts them at the mercy of every Middle East dictator. The governments have known this clearly since the 1940s - see the Barbarossa operation. The US had literal generations to reduce their oil dependency and yet chose to remain dependent. It has nothing to do with the current war.
The US succeeded in reducing their oil dependency and the country is now a net exporter. That doesn't solve the environmental concerns, nor hermetically seal the country from trends in global oil markets, but the US's energy independence agenda has definitely been successful on its own terms.
Unfortunately, it hasn't diminished the number of American foreign policy experts who think it's very important to fight lots of wars in the Middle East.
It seems to me that the current war in the middle east has more to do with ensuring those who chant Death To America do not develop nuclear weapons and to set back their ballistic missile program.
I agree those are big problems! That's why I supported JCPOA. The US foreign policy blob wanted to bomb Iran instead, though, with very unclear explanations of how bombing Iran would cause a kind and non-belligerent government to take over. The more articulate members seem to take it as an article of faith that people react to American bombs by doing what the American government wants; the less articulate members have just been insulting journalists when they ask basic questions about whether there's a plan or what the goal is.
A treaty whose key articles would start expiring in.. late 2025. Which Iran had no motivation whatsoever to extend had it being kept (imagine this Iran but with 2-4 trillion dollars more, more than a few going to drones and missiles). You'd have this war but on way worse terms.
It's kind of a problem if you can't definitely say why a war of aggression is being fought, no? But if we do say that this war is being primarily fought to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, then it has to be considered an unmitigated failure. The current outlook is immeasurably worse than it was at the end of the Biden administration, and I'd charitably describe Biden as having done next to nothing to stop them.
If Trump truly cared about nukes, he wouldn't have torn up the treaty in his first term. This war's about catering to Israel and distracting from the Epstein files.
The treaty that would have expired in January 2026 and left Iran with far more resources? Biden gave Iran $6 billion, a month later the Gazans infiltrated Israel with Iranian-funded weaponry.
I don't interpret your statistic the same way you do and I don't think it backs your point. Some of the difference between that 11% and 33% you quote are due to the fact that gas is baseline cheaper in the US than China, and a mere denominator difference doesn't prove one more reliant than the other on gas when it goes up by a flat rate, which is how oil prices generally impact gas prices. Another factor you're failing to consider is the possibility that economic headwinds due to oil prices or any other factor really (you're trying to model an extremely complex system here and the war can affect these two economies in many other ways) impact Chinese demand for gas (driven by their mfg sector) more than American demand for gas (driven by broader factors) - maybe cargo price, currency, shift of demand from consumer to military, or who knows what are causing the things you see. I don't claim to have the answer, I am just saying your measure is totally insufficient to prove your point. You're correct that it's a global commodity that impacts everyone but most experts agree that it impacts east Asia more than the US.
The article states that it's not important for any reason other than oil and shipping:
"The entire region has exactly two strategic concerns of note: the Suez Canal (and connected Red Sea shipping system) and the oil production in the Persian Gulf and the shipping system used to export it. So long as these two arteries remained open the region does not matter very much to the United States."
Unfortunately these two things have been the major drivers of politics of the last 80 years in the region.
China is a primary adversary for the US. Oil is a major resource for both countries, supporting economics and defense.
First, observe the top 10 oil reserve countries:
1. Venezuela: ~303–304 billion barrels (mostly heavy crude) 2. Saudi Arabia: ~267 billion barrels 3. Iran: ~208–209 billion barrels 4. Canada: ~163–170 billion barrels (mostly oil sands) 5. Iraq: ~145–147 billion barrels 6. United Arab Emirates (UAE): ~111–113 billion barrels 7. Kuwait: ~101 billion barrels 8. Russia: ~80–110 billion barrels (estimates vary) 9. United States: ~40–70 billion barrels (reserves fluctuate with prices/technology) 10. Libya: ~48 billion barrels
China is the world's largest oil importer. Stats are hard, things get mislabeled due to sanctions, but somewhere between 15%-20% of China's oil is-or-was from Iran+Venezuela.
In my view, this partially explains the move in Iran, considering a 3-10 year strategic timeline.
So it’s not about nuclear weapons?
It was never about nuclear weapons, Netanyahu has been saying Iran was one week away for over 30 years. Europe goes along as an excuse to support politically unpopular war to maintain US support for Ukraine.
What would you expect Europe to do? It’s not like they openly support this war. The Iranian diaspora supports it, there is the secularism element, but the US doesn’t care about the Iranian people anyway
The diaspora is happy about the regime being targeted. They will be much, much more ambivalent if the US starts targeting power infrastructure and innocent people in hospitals etc start dying en masse.
Power infrastructure & hospitals are already being targeted and bombed. Just doesn't make the news.
> Power infrastructure & hospitals are already being targeted and bombed
It's absolutely not. If they were being targeted, material fractions of them would be getting destroyed. Instead we're seeing one offs, which look more like fuckups or Israeli nonsense.
The diaspora somewhat supported it for a week. Then a desalination plant was hit, and I guarantee the support grew way, way weaker. Now we're 3 weeks in, and the only Iranian I keep contact with is extremely sad that the outcome is this bad. I won't tell him 'i told you so', because unlike people on HN who argue for the operation, he doesn't deserve it, but to the 'regime change' supporters: I told you so.
No, he hasn't been saying that, despite what you may have read in a random reddit comment. In the 90s he was saying 3-5 years. In 2010 it was 1-2 years.
The first time any kind of claim measured in weeks was immediately before Rising Lion last year, and guess what, the IAEA agreed with him.
In 2015 he said weeks. I think we can agree a few weeks passed before that and bombing Iran ten years later.
https://youtube.com/shorts/jlqXOwYfpdQ?is=woFU_DlsW3Eb5NYd
I think we can agree that being weeks away from having enough fissile material for a nuke is different from being weeks away from having a nuke. Unless you think you just get your fissile material and then pop it in the next day
its always oil and 'freedom'
the nuclear weapons program has cost about 2T USD for Iran, and definitely makes certain arguments for intervention more acceptable, but it doesn't negate the other side of the equation. the cost of intervention is still enormous. (and since the enriched uranium is an obvious target it is obviously even more protected)