DOD chief Hegseth said that a choice to move a number of B-2 bombers from their base in Missouri earlier Saturday was meant to be a decoy to throw off Iranians. He added that the U.S. used other methods of deception as well, deploying fighters to protect the B-2 bombers that dropped 14 bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s site at Fordow.
Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
US President Donald Trump has warned oil producers against pushing prices higher, amid rising market volatility following American strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and Tehran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz – a key shipping lane for global crude exports.
US forces targeted nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz on Saturday, just a day after Trump said he would decide “within the next two weeks” whether to act. The strikes surprised investors, briefly sending crude prices to five-month highs before easing.
“EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I’M WATCHING! YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON’T DO IT!” Trump wrote Monday on his Truth Social platform.
In a separate post, he called for an immediate increase in domestic production: “To the Department of Energy: DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!”
Crude prices have climbed roughly 10% since Israel’s surprise strike on Iran ten days ago, amid growing fears of a broader regional conflict and potential supply disruptions.
Traders are now closely watching for possible retaliation from Iran, which could target energy infrastructure across the Middle East. Tehran, which controls the Strait of Hormuz – a route for about 20% of the world’s oil – has threatened to shut the waterway in response to the US strikes. Its parliament approved the move on Sunday, though the final decision rests with the country’s national security council.
While Iran has issued similar threats in the past, analysts say fully closing the strait would be difficult, as Tehran also relies on the channel to export oil to China and other key buyers.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday urged China to pressure Iran not to carry out the threat, arguing that, as Iran’s top oil customer, Beijing has significant leverage. The US Energy Information Administration has called the Strait of Hormuz the “world’s most important oil transit chokepoint.”
Analysts warn that any disruption to traffic through the strait or to Iranian oil exports could drive prices higher and weigh on global economic growth. “The main economic risk is a rise in energy prices,” wrote Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius in a note seen by CNBC.
Hatzius projected that a prolonged closure could reduce global GDP by more than 0.3 percentage points and push inflation higher. S&P Global also warned that natural gas flows could be “severely impacted.”
As of Monday, Brent crude was trading around $72 a barrel. US benchmark WTI briefly surged 4.6% to $78 before slipping back to around $70. Analysts say Brent could climb as high as $110 a barrel if the strait is blocked.
Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
“Great empires are not maintained by timidity.” ― Tacitus
“Veni, vidi, vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)” ― Julius Caesar
Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of U.S. Policy in the Middle East
Irene L. Gendzier presents incontrovertible evidence that oil politics played a significant role in the founding of Israel, the policy then adopted by the United States toward Palestinians, and subsequent U.S. involvement in the region. Consulting declassified U.S. government sources, as well as papers in the H.S. Truman Library, she uncovers little-known features of U.S. involvement in the region, including significant exchanges in the winter and spring of 1948 between the director of the Oil and Gas Division of the Interior Department and the representative of the Jewish Agency in the United States, months before Israel's independence and recognition by President Truman.
Gendzier also shows that U.S. consuls and representatives abroad informed State Department officials, including the Secretary of State and the President, of the deleterious consequences of partition in Palestine. Yet the attempt to reconsider partition and replace it with a UN trusteeship for Palestine failed, jettisoned by Israel's declaration of independence. The results altered the regional balance of power and Washington's calculations of policy toward the new state. Prior to that, Gendzier reveals the U.S. endorsed the repatriation of Palestinian refugees in accord with UNGA Res 194 of Dec. 11, 1948, in addition to the resolution of territorial claims, the definition of boundaries, and the internationalization of Jerusalem. But U.S. interests in the Middle East, notably the protection of American oil interests, led U.S. officials to rethink Israel's military potential as a strategic ally. Washington then deferred to Israel with respect to the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, the question of boundaries, and the fate of Jerusalem—issues that U.S. officials have come to realize are central to the 1948 conflict and its aftermath.
About the Author and Scholar
Irene L. Gendzier, Ph.D. (Columbia University, 1964; M.A., Columbia; B.A., Barnard College), is Professor Emerita in the Department of Political Science at Boston University, an Affiliate in Research at Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and a research affiliate of the MIT Center for International Studies.
You'll understand easily why the US admin is complicit or even pushing for the Genocide in Gaza.
The Long Bloody Legacy of EMPIRES
1914 Mideast Imperial Map
Dividing the Political Map of the World into an Economic Map between the North and 'Global South' or 'Developing Countries' has a long and tragic history based on EMPIRE's conquests and colonialism, racism and xenophobia. [See this 1914 Mideast Imperial Map]
The imperial conquest and competition for the control over the world's fossil fuel, aka, oil and natural gas, reserves has one of main reasons for what has been called 'The Great Game of Empires.' You'll note the majority of these 'black gold reserves' lay in regions of The Global South spanning from the Mideast, throughout the Asia-Pacific basin and the Latin American continent. In our journey through this course, you will learn how the wars and interventions of the Global North have and still rage over this vital yet deadly commodity and the millions killed to control it for profits.
From the Middle East to Asia: Western Colonial Empires Carve Up the Global South
It wasn’t until our next to last night in Iraq that we’d find someone who could truly understand just how little America’s objectives had changed since Kennan’s time. *
After three intense days embedded with the U.S. Army in an area north of Baghdad, we are placed on a dangerous “presence patrol” that takes us into Samarra, a hotbed of anti-American violence. That night, after surviving the exercise without incident, we start talking to Sergeant Robert Hollis, a thirty-five-year-old tank commander. Standing in front of a poster of Britney Spears posing with NFL football players, he begins deconstructing the historical parallels between the Second Punic War and the battle he’s been fighting.
“The Romans took the fight to them,” he explains. “That’s what we’re doing here. They wouldn’t field a credible army on the field of battle, so we came into their homeland.”
Sgt. Hollis is something of legend in his division, as a fast-talking, hip-hop autodidact from Alabama who spouts off about the Romans any chance he can get. The other guys don’t seem to know whether what he’s talking about is pure bull, or pure genius. Either way, he cracks them up. Tonight, he’s getting serious, and some start listening in.
“The reality is even the Roman Empire had to fight to secure its way of life,” he says. “When America says liberation, we mean capitalism. It’s about globalization. It’s about expansion of markets. We have to stabilize new and emerging markets in order to secure resources.”
As he talks, a group of plainclothes Special Forces operatives lock and load their weapons and check their radio headsets.
He continues, “Can you tell mothers and brothers and sisters that your sons and daughters are dying for capital goods? No, you cannot. You have to make sure you tell them you are fighting for moral, ethical reasons.”
Then Sgt. Hollis offers a final bleak yet depressingly accurate assessment of the operation’s prospect for success.
“Will we win the hearts and minds of people? Maybe not in this generation. But you have to think in the long term. Maybe not in fifty years, maybe not in one hundred years. There’s no hate. The problem is one side must win; one side must lose. The war must be won in Afghanistan, and it must be won here to improve our way of life.”
The problem is not will we win, but what we will have become when we do.
Anthony Lappe, Stephen Marshal, “Sergeant Hollis’ War,” in True Lies, Guerrilla News Network pp.141-142, 2004.]
The Iraq war defined the first decade of the twenty-first century – leading to mass protests and raising profound questions about domestic politics and the use of military force. Yet most explanations of the war have a narrow focus either on political personalities or oil.
DOD chief Hegseth said that a choice to move a number of B-2 bombers from their base in Missouri earlier Saturday was meant to be a decoy to throw off Iranians. He added that the U.S. used other methods of deception as well, deploying fighters to protect the B-2 bombers that dropped 14 bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s site at Fordow.
