Iran's war strategy is now clear: raise oil prices, crash stock markets, cause economic crisis

The war that the United States and Israel initiated against Iran continues to drag on.

And as the days pass, the strategy of both sides in this war is becoming clear and clear.

The US and Israel initially thought they could win a quick and easy war by carrying out

decapitation strikes and eliminating all of the top military and political leaders of

Iran. And Donald Trump assumed that it would be a quick and easy operation like his invasion

of Venezuela. And after eliminating all of the leaders, the US and Israel could put a puppet

regime into Iran and they could declare victory. However, that strategy obviously did not work.

The Iranian government has shown itself to be much more resilient and able to replace their

leaders. And now what we clearly see is a war of attrition in which both sides are prepared

for a much longer war in which they try to slowly attack each other and grind down each other's

capacities until one side gives in. So now what the US military is doing is just brutally bombing

civilian areas in Iran, schools and hospitals and residential neighborhoods. Simply to try to

collapse Iranian society to make people so desperate, they beg for an end to the war.

And US Secretary of War Pete Hagseth boasted proudly, this was never meant to be a fair fight.

And it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they're down, which is exactly how it should

be. And it is certainly true that the US military is much more powerful than Iran's military

at least if you look at it at a kind of superficial level, simply looking at the number of planes

and warships and aircraft carriers and missiles that the US has and compare it to Iran.

So for instance, the US spends $1 trillion per year on its military,

whereas Iran spends about $10 billion per year. So certainly it does look like the US is infinitely

more powerful than Iran, and this should be easy, right? I mean, this is the arrogant view

in Washington. However, the Iranian military is much more sophisticated than many of these war

hawks in Washington assumed. And Iran has mastered the art of asymmetric warfare. Tehran always knew

that it could never compete with the US in terms of number of missiles and advanced technology,

but Iran recognized that the US still has major points of vulnerability that Iran could hit.

And in this way, Iran is borrowing the tactics of the anti-colonial movements in the 20th century.

Like for instance, the national liberation front of South Vietnam, which waged an asymmetric

guerrilla war against the US military, the US assumed that it could easily win a war against

Vietnam, which was one of the poorest countries in the world. But at the end of the day,

the US despite all of its resources and all of its military power and technology,

the US still lost that war. And Iran is implementing a very similar strategy

today. And part of the strategy is what Iran refers to as its decentralized mosaic defense

doctrine in which the command structure of the Iranian military has been decentralized

because Iranian military commanders know they're very likely going to be targeted by the US

and Israel. So by decentralizing leadership and also by physically decentralizing the weapons

and the soldiers, Iran can withstand the heavy bombardment of the US and Israel,

and it's prepared to wage a much longer war of attrition. And obviously, Iran doesn't have the

capacity to hit the continental United States on the other side of the world. So instead,

Iran recognized that there are major points of vulnerability and those include the energy markets,

especially the global oil price and the stock market. So Iran's strategy is to massively

increase energy cost to spike the price of oil to cause an energy crisis that then unleashes

an economic crisis and causes very high rates of inflation and at the same time to try to crash

stock markets. So the US has previously been waging brutal economic war against Iran

through the use of sanctions. Well, Iran is now giving the US a taste of its own medicine

by implementing a kind of guerrilla economic warfare. And thus far, the strategy has been

quite successful. The price of oil has nearly doubled. It is now close to 120 US dollars per barrel.

And when the US and Israel launched this war of aggression on the 28th of February,

the day before it was about 70 dollars. And how has Tehran accomplished this? Well, first of all,

Tehran shut down the straight of horror moves, which is the most important oil transit choke point

on earth. It is right off the coast of Iran. And every day, 20% of the global oil supply

flows through this very narrow street. And as of the beginning of March,

traffic through the straight of horror moves has grinded to a halt. And there are basically no

ships traveling through the street. But it's not just that. Iran has also targeted energy

infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region. Now, almost all of the neighboring countries host

US military bases. And the US military has used many of these bases in the Gulf region

in order to attack Iran, which means these countries are parties to the conflict.

Many of their governments claim that supposedly they're neutral. That's ridiculous.

The US is using their territory and they're allowing the US military to use bases on their

territory in order to attack Iran. They are parties to the conflict. So Iran has retaliated,

not only hitting the US military bases in these neighboring countries, but also hitting some of

the oil and gas infrastructure, which has caused significant damage. And many of these Persian

Gulf monarchies, these dictatorships sponsored by the US, they've been forced to shut down oil

and gas production. And this is not something that you can just turn off and on like a switch.

Once Qatar shuts down gas production, once Saudi Arabia shuts down oil production,

it's going to take many weeks, if not well over a month, to actually bring that production

back to the previous levels. And this is why these US backed Gulf dictatorships are freaking out.

The US backed monarchies are warning as Qatar's energy minister warned in an article in the

financial times that this war could quote, bring down the economies of the world and quote,

and the US backed Qatar dictatorship estimated that the oil price could rise to $150 a barrel,

which is well over double the initial price of $70 when the US and Israel launched this war

of aggression. And this is going to have major economic consequences on countries all around the

world, including the United States. And you know what Donald Trump's response has been

on his website, Truth Social, Trump insisted that skyrocketing oil prices are quote,

a very small price to pay end quote. And then he added in all caps, only fools would think

differently end quote. Well, many working class Americans are going to feel very differently,

very soon, because due to this US Israeli war of aggression against Iran, as the global oil

price has skyrocketed. Naturally, the price of gasoline has also skyrocketed and it nearly

doubled from January until the beginning of March. And as the war continues, it's likely that

gasoline prices will only continue to rise. And this is going to have massive shock waves throughout

the economy, because as the economist Isabel Aver has shown in her research, fossil fuel prices

are the most important price for inflation and also inequality. When the price of energy sky

rockets, everything else in the economy becomes more expensive. All of the other goods and services

because the food you buy at a supermarket has to be sent physically to the supermarket. It has

to be transported often in a big truck that uses a lot of gasoline and imported goods have to be sent

across the ocean on ships that use a lot of gasoline or in planes that use a lot of gasoline.

And the economist Isabel Aver has also shown in her research that this fuels inequality.

The poor you are, the larger share of income you spend on basic essentials and the price of those

essentials rises as gas prices go up. So this war of choice, this war of aggression that the US

initiated against Iran is going to have massive negative repercussions, especially on working class

people, including working class voters in the United States. And let's not forget that this year

in November of 2026, there are midterm elections. And Americans are going to be very angry about Trump

starting a totally unnecessary war of choice, which leads to an even worse affordability crisis

in the US when many people can't afford housing and school and insurance. And now gas prices are

skyrocketing, which means food prices are going to skyrocket. Inflation is going to pick up once

again, despite the fact that Trump won the election in 2024, falsely claiming that he was going to

bring down inflation. He's totally failed to do that. And as of the 9th of March, Trump's

approval rating was just 38% with 58% of Americans, nearly three fifths opposing Trump. And it's

likely that his approval ratings will continue to fall in the upcoming months as the midterm election

years in November. But that's not all. Adding to the major inflationary pressures of this war

is the fact that many of the Persian Gulf countries are also key parts of the global supply chain

for fertilizers. Many of them produce fertilizers or they provide the inputs, the chemicals

that are necessary to actually create fertilizer. This means that the US's rarely war

aggression against Iran could cause a global food price shock because the global fertilizer

supply chain is breaking down. And this is in addition to the very high costs of energy of oil

and natural gas due to this war. And this crisis has been immediately felt by the Persian Gulf

monarchies surrounding Iran that are hosting US military bases and helping the US wage war

against Iran. The UAE, for instance, is warning that Dubai could run out of food in just a few

days because these Persian Gulf dictatorships sponsored by the US, they don't produce anything

other than oil and natural gas and maybe some chemicals. They don't produce food. They import

basically everything. And this US's rarely war of aggression has caused a massive crisis. And

if they can import anything, it's now extremely expensive because ships don't want to go anywhere

near the Persian Gulf right now. And air traffic is also shutting down. Every few days there is a

new report that Dubai or another major city in the Gulf is shutting down their airport operations.

And then yes, maybe the next day or two days after they resume operations. But the point is it's

very difficult to get a flight in or a flight out. And this is devastating the reputation

of these Persian Gulf dictatorships that have marketed themselves, especially to rich

expats from Western countries and rich people from the global south who leave their own home country

because they don't want to pay taxes and they relocate to countries like the UAE and they support

these Persian Gulf dictatorships that abuse migrant workers and treat them like modern-day slaves.

But these rich people don't care because they don't have to pay taxes and they live extreme

lives of luxury. And it was assumed that it was so safe to live in the UAE or Saudi Arabia or

these other Persian Gulf dictatorships. But we now see that was an illusion. These are proxy regimes

of the US Empire and they host US military bases. Most of them support Israel and have done

nothing to help the Palestinian people. And now they're facing consequences for helping the US

wage war progression against Iran. And this is why so many rich people, expats living in these

countries are freaking out and trying to find a way to leave. And this brings us to another major

aspect of this war, which is the missile defense systems that not only Israel has but also

many of these Persian Gulf monarchies that they bought from the US. And Bloomberg published a very

important article titled, Iran's missile math, $20,000 drones take on $4 million Patriot missiles.

This article noted that just three days into the war it already became a battle of attrition.

Like the war in Ukraine, where both sides are trying to grind each other down. This article

notes that waves of drone attacks by Iran are putting pressure on the defenses of the US and

its partners from Bahrain to the UAE depleting weapons stockpiles. As Bloomberg puts it,

the outcome of the fight may depend on which side runs out of munitions first. And Bloomberg

mentions a very important military technology called the Shahid 136 one way attack drone.

If you followed the war in Ukraine, you've probably heard of these because Iran has in fact provided

the technology to Russia. And Russia is now actually developing its own modified forms of

the Shahid drone. And drones have been a key part of the war in Ukraine. And today they're also a

very important part of this Iranian war of self defense against US Israeli aggression. So what

is the Shahid 136 drone? This is a kamikaze drone. They carry explosives and then they drive

toward a target and they explode. They're not meant to come back. But the advantage of these kamikaze

drones is one, they're quite cheap to make. Iran makes them for estimates of between $10,000 and

$30,000 US dollars and average of $20,000 US dollars, which is significantly cheaper than a missile,

especially the interceptors used in these US missile defense systems provided by big companies

like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. And these drones are very small. They're about 2.5 meters by 3.5 meters.

So Iran has been able to make many thousands of these Shahid drones. And it's likely that Iran,

as we speak, is making more and more. It's not just that Iran had a stockpile preparing for the war.

As the war continues, it's likely that Iran is going to make more and more. So Iran can maintain

this war of attrition at a time when the US and its proxies in the region are actually running out

of missile interceptors. This is the main point of the Bloomberg article that I cited. Bloomberg

pointed out that US made Patriot air defense missiles have been largely successful in stopping

Iranian Shahid drones and Iranian ballistic missiles in the early days of the attacks, allegedly

with interception rates of 90% according to the UAE. However, each of these Patriot air defense

missiles costs $4 million compared to just $20,000 that Iran is spending on these cheap kamikaze

drones. So this brings me back to a major issue that I mentioned at the beginning of this analysis

today, which is again, if you just look at the data, it's very impressive. The US spends a

trillion dollars per year in its military. Iran spends about 10 billion. So a lot of so-called

experts say there's no question. The US is obviously going to win this war. It's going to be so

easy. This is why the Trump administration was so arrogant when they started this war. They

drank the Kool-Aid. They believe their own propaganda. They think that all you have to do is just

spend insane amounts of money and the more you spend, the more you will win. However, what Bloomberg

calls this missile math calls into question that logic because, okay, yeah, the US spends all this

money and Saudi Arabia and the UAE and these Gulf monarchies, they spend all this money on their

military budgets. But at the end of the day, they're spending $4 million per interceptor missile

compared to Iran spending just $20,000 on a drone. So this is a key example of what I mentioned earlier,

Iran's strategy of asymmetric warfare. Use the enemy's weight, use the weight of the big fat

bully against them. And by the way, one of the main reasons that the US military budget is so

enormous and the military budgets of the Gulf regimes are also pretty big is because most of

that money is going to benefit the military industrial complex. These four profit corporations,

like for instance, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, who develop the Patriot defense systems and

these other missiles and interceptors being used by the Gulf regimes. So these are known as the

Beltway bandits. They're making billions and billions of dollars and their wealthy shareholders

are profiting. So they're certainly not complaining. But Bloomberg warned that cuts are, for instance,

only has enough Patriot interceptor missiles for four days of use in response to these Iranian

strikes, which are carried out in self defense in response to the US Israeli War of Aggression,

which is backed by the Gulf monarchies. And adding to that, another major part of Iran's strategy

is Tehran recognizes that they don't want to waste their most valuable missiles at the beginning

of the war because what Iran wants to do is deplete the missile defense systems of these

Gulf monarchies and also Israel. So Bloomberg pointed out that Tehran at the beginning of this war

was mostly using the cheap Shahed drones and old missiles and Iran was likely saving its more

advanced and damaging ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles for sustained attacks later

after Iran exhausted the missile defense systems of these neighboring countries.

This is why the Gulf dictatorships are freaking out and they're begging Washington to send them

more interceptors, more missiles for their defense systems. And you know what the response of the

US is, uh, sorry, we don't have enough. We're focused on protecting Israel. We don't really care

about all of you, even though the US Empire has been propping up these hereditary dictatorships

for decades, which by the way is putting more and more pressure on these Gulf regimes and

they're slowly waking up to the fact that hosting US military bases does not actually protect them

on the contrary. It endangers them because when there's a war like this that was started by the

US and Israel, the US is not actually protecting them and their targets of Iran's legitimate

retaliation because they're hosting US military bases that are being used to attack Iran. So

Iran's strategy here is quite clear. Tehran wants to turn up the heat and force these Gulf

dictatorships to feel the pain and there will be so much pressure that maybe after this war ends,

the Gulf regimes may tell the US to pack up and leave and kick out the US military bases,

not out of principle opposition to US imperialism, but out of their own self preservation.

And a perfect example of this realization is an interview that was done on Al Jazeera Arabic.

Now Al Jazeera is the state media of the Qatari Manaki and Qatari uses it as a kind of soft power

tool around the world. And Qatar hosts US military bases. It hosts the largest US military base

in the region, the Al Udaid base, which has been targeted in self defense by Iran.

And Qatar has given a platform to many of these Gulf regime mouthpieces who have supported the war,

especially Al Jazeera Arabic, which is much more anti-Iran than Al Jazeera English. However,

a major Saudi political analyst, Soleiman Al-Akili, who is very close to the regime,

on Al Jazeera, he complained that, quote, America has abandoned us and focused its defense

systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases

at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones. And, quote, and Tehran recognizes this.

And this is why Tehran is putting up the pressure because it wants these Gulf dictatorships to

realize that the US is not actually protecting them. The US empire is endangering them.

And the sooner the Gulf regimes kick out those US military bases, the safer they will be.

Now, of course, no one knows if that will actually happen. And it's perfectly possible that the

Gulf monarchies continue to act as US imperial proxies. But when we're doing an analysis here of

this asymmetric warfare that Iran is waging, we have to think of it in a different way that you

would think a kind of conventional war between two major powers where the war is clearly won or lost

on the battlefield. In this case, Iran is waging an asymmetric war, which means what does victory

actually look like? Well, from Tehran's perspective, victory looks like the Iranian government

survives this war. They recognize it's an existential war. The US and Israel are trying to bring

about state collapse. So one, if the Iranian government survives, they win the war. But that's the

most basic level of victory. Another level is Iran could accomplish its long term strategic goal

of kicking out the US military occupiers and at least some of the neighboring countries,

maybe not all of the countries, but maybe in countries like Iraq, for instance, and the US has

maintained an illegal military presence in Iraq ever since the illegal US war of aggression,

the invasion in 2003. And by the way, in 2020, Iraq's democratically elected parliament voted to

expel the US troops occupying their country and the US refused to withdraw its troops. Instead,

Donald Trump during his first term as president threatened to impose sanctions on Iraq's

democratically elected government, which shows the US doesn't care one bit about democracy,

yet alone sovereignty. And by the way, when Biden, Joe Biden, the Democrat was president,

he did not withdraw US troops from Iraq either. So the US still has military bases in Iraq.

And maybe an outcome of this war is Iraq finally forces out the US military occupiers.

And maybe it happens in other countries as well. The point is there are different

goals that Iran has. And if the Iranian state survives this war, it won. But of course,

it has other goals that would like to accomplish as well. Now with that said, let's talk more about

the problems that the US military is facing in this war of aggression. It's waging against Iran.

Bloomberg pointed out that US strike planners are unlikely to have moved enough

munition to the region to continue striking Iran for four weeks. Trump estimated the war could

go on for four or five weeks, although he said it could go on much longer. But the US is going to

very quickly run out of munitions. Foreign policy magazine published a very interesting article

analyzing this problem. And it noted that in the first 36 hours of this war, the US and its allies

consumed more than 3000 munitions. The article noted that Iran is pursuing an asymmetric war

of attrition focused on exhausting US, Israeli and allied defensive resources. This is what I've

been talking about for several minutes here. And this is the really important quote. It noted that

while the interceptions have been largely successful, they are very costly. The expended munitions

and the minerals required to build them are a defense industrial problem for the West and especially

the United States. Because over the past several decades and the era of neoliberal capitalism,

the US deindustrialized capitalists stopped investing in domestic manufacturing. They outsourced

the supply chain and instead they focused on the most profitable high value added industries which

were in services and intellectual property development and software and finance. So this is a major

problem not only for the US economy, you know, the rust belt being left behind and all of this.

But deindustrialization is also a problem for the US empire because the US military industrial

complex needs to actually manufacture the weapons for these wars of aggression. This foreign

policy article noted that yes, the US government can provide all kinds of emergency supplemental

funding. However, the US cannot instantly reverse decades of consolidated production lines

and attribute mineral processing capacity. You can't just reverse deindustrialization by throwing

money at it. This is going to take years if not decades and I'm still very skeptical as to

whether it actually will be accomplished. This foreign policy article also warned that US missiles

are being expended faster than they can be replaced. And this is why Trump held an emergency meeting

at the White House. Trump convened the CEOs of all of the beltway bandits, these top corporations

in the military industrial complex, including BAA systems, Lockheed Martin, North of Grumman,

Raytheon, which now rebranded as RTX, Boeing, Honeywell, and other companies.

And Trump said these corporations agreed to quadruple production of weapons. Lockheed Martin,

for instance, posted a tweet in which it said that it agreed to quadruple production of critical

munitions. Okay, so they're going to make more munitions, but how fast is it going to be?

Because they need them now. They need them in a few days or maybe a few weeks. If you really think

that these US corporations can suddenly magically out of nowhere quadruple their production

in a few days or even a few weeks, I'm sorry, you live on Mars, you live in fantasy land,

that's not going to happen. And then by the way, they have to transport it to the other side of

the world, which is also going to take several days to transport it. So it's too late. You can't

do this in the middle of the war. It's not going to work. But I also want to highlight another

detail, which is important because Trump held this meeting with the CEOs of the military industrial

complex, the beltway bandits at the White House, and another top US government official who attended

the meeting, in addition to the Secretary of War, the Neo-Conservative Warhawk Pete Hagseth,

alongside him was the deputy secretary of war, previously known as the deputy secretary of defense,

Stephen Feinberg, and Lockheed Martin mentioned Feinberg by name. Who is Stephen Feinberg? Well,

he is a billionaire investor from Wall Street, and he ran a private equity fund that invested

you guessed it in the US military industrial complex, and making many of the weapons systems

that the US government is now using to wage war. And when Trump nominated Feinberg to be the

deputy secretary of defense now, the deputy secretary of war, political pointed out at the time,

there were significant conflicts of interest. So the people running the Pentagon right now,

aside from the crazy Fox News host, Pete Hagseth, he's just the public face. He just does the public

relations, but the people actually running the behind scenes operations are these Wall Street

investors who profit from the military industrial complex. I mean, the corruption is so blatant

and so extreme. So yeah, Trump may publicly announce that, yeah, we're going to quadruple our

production of munitions, and we're going to continue fighting this war for as long as it takes.

I'm still very skeptical. I think at the end of the day, the people actually benefiting from

this as always are the beltway bandits are the shareholders in the military industrial complex

corporations. They're making profits hand over fist, but at the end of the day, these are

unrealistic expectations. And the US defense industrial base has been so atrophied by these very

same capitalists on Wall Street who deindustrialize the US because it profited them. It wasn't China

that did it. It was Wall Street that did it. And now, once again, they're profiting from this war

of aggression. And Trump says, don't worry, just close your eyes, plug your ears and just believe

the emperor who has no clothes. And at the end of the day, this is the error that every empire

eventually commits. Empires believe their own propaganda. They become so arrogant that they

underestimate their adversary. And this is exactly what the US has done. The US thought that

Iran was a paper tiger. All they had to do was decapitate the leadership and the regime into

Iran would fall and they could impose a puppet regime. That's always a narrative that they spread.

But in reality, what we've seen is that the Iranian government has shown itself to be very

sophisticated, very savvy. And Iran has been able to take out some very strategic infrastructure.

For instance, Bloomberg reported that in the first week of this US Israeli war of aggression,

Iran destroyed a key $300 million radar system that was crucial to directing US

missile defense systems in the Gulf, therefore straining the region's ability to counter future

attacks. And this brings me back to the issue of energy production in the Persian Gulf region.

I want to provide more details about this because it's very important to understand the geopolitical

implications of this war that could have a massive impact on the international economy.

Now, I mentioned earlier that as part of this war in self-defense, Iran has not only been hitting

the US military bases in the country surrounding it, that the Gulf regimes are allowing the US to

use to attack Iran. But also, Tehran has targeted energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf regimes

that has significantly damaged their oil and gas production. However, it's not just that.

Iran has also hit a few hotels in some of the Gulf countries. And this has angered the

Gulf dictatorships, which have publicly condemned Iran and claimed that supposedly

Tehran is targeting civilian areas. That's not true. It's very misleading because what we now know,

the Washington Post admitted is that yes, Iran did hit some of these hotels,

but Iran was not targeting civilians. Instead, Iran was targeting US military officials

who were staying in these hotels, which again shows that Iran's intelligence abilities are

much more sophisticated than many people in the West thought. Because Iranian intelligence

officials, they saw that after they hit these US military bases in the region, many US military

officials left the bases and where did they go? They went to go and stay in hotels in these

Gulf monarchies. So Iran tracked the US military officials and then bombed the hotels where these

US military officials were staying. Again, this was admitted by the Washington Post. This is not just

speculation. The Washington Post obtained US State Department cables admitting it. So internally,

the US government knows this is happening. And it's not just hotels. You may have also seen

reports in the media condemning Iran for striking a so-called civilian port in Kuwait.

Well, we now know that that was also propaganda because CNN admitted that Iran was actually striking

US military officials who were using a civilian port in Kuwait for makeshift operations for the US

military. So the US military is using civilian ports in the Gulf regimes in order to wage war

against Iran. That makes them legitimate military targets and Iran has the right to self-defense.

The US is actually using civilian ports and hotels as human shields. The people in the civilian

areas. The US is using them as human shields, which is ironically what the US and Israel always

accused their adversaries, especially the Palestinians of doing. Well, we now know from reports in

mainstream Western media outlets that the US military is using civilian ports to try to wage war

against Iran and US military officials are staying in these hotels. That's why Iran is targeting

them. And again, I have to stress the point that even aside from all of that, these Gulf monarchies

are not neutral. They cynically claim we're not party to this conflict. Why is Iran attacking us?

Because they are hosting US military bases that are being used to attack Iran. These

Gulf dictatorships are not neutral. They are parties to this war, which is why Iran is targeting

them. This is why Saudi Arabia's biggest oil refinery was forced to shut down operations

after a drone attack. And this is also why cuts are a shutting down gas liquefocation.

And as I emphasized earlier, this is not just like an on and off switch. When you shut down

operations in these very complex facilities, it takes weeks, perhaps even more than a month

as Reuters reported in order to bring back normal levels of production. And this is having an

enormous impact on the global energy market because six of the top 15 largest producers of oil

on earth are in this region. Saudi Arabia is the number two producer of oil and other major

producers include Iraq, the UAE, Iran itself, Kuwait, and Qatar. And all of them have had

to suspend operations due to this war. And the situation is even more dire when you look at oil

exports because the US is actually the world's number one producer of oil, which is why some US

oil corporations are not angry about this war. They're profiting from the very high oil prices.

But the US is a massive country. It has 350 million people. So the US also imports a lot of oil.

Saudi Arabia on the other hand and the Gulf regimes, these are tiny little countries. So in terms

of their oil output per capita, it's just on a whole new level, which is why per capita,

there's some of the richest countries on earth. So Saudi Arabia is the number one exporter of oil.

Iraq is the number five exporter and the UAE is the number six exporter and Kuwait is the number

seven exporter. And we're seeing a very similar crisis in the global market for natural gas

because four of the top 15 global producers of natural gas are also in this region,

including Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. However, the most common ways for countries

in the Gulf to export that gas is in liquefied form in the form of LNG because they can't just make

a pipeline across the ocean to other countries and other continents. And if you look at the world's

top exporters of LNG, Qatar is number three. And when you think about how tiny Qatar is,

per capita, I mean, it's just absolutely incredible. Qatar exports almost as much LNG as Australia.

And Qatar is a little tiny Gulf regime. But with the straight of hormones now closed,

these Gulf regimes are now finding it extremely difficult to export oil and LNG. So this means

these regimes are now desperately trying to find another way to export their oil and gas.

This was explained in a very interesting article in Bloomberg. It noted that a senior advisor to the

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, which is a major part of the Iranian armed forces,

this advisor said that they quote, won't allow a single drop of oil to leave the region. And

quote, this is why they closed the straight of hormones. So Bloomberg explained what are the

strategies being used by the Gulf regimes to try to find an alternative route. It noted for

instance that Saudi Arabia and the UAE do have some ability to re-root their crude exports via

pipelines. So to look at the case of Saudi Arabia, for instance, it has a pipeline connecting to

the city of Yanbu on the western coast. And then they can send oil in this pipeline into the Red

Sea. And then they can try to export oil to other countries through the Red Sea, avoiding the Persian

Gulf and the straight of hormones. However, even that is much easier said than done because Reuters

pointed out that fine Saudi Arabia can try to do that. But first of all, it has limited capacity

in this pipeline. And second of all, the cost of using oil tankers at the city of Yanbu have more

than doubled because many shippers are just avoiding the Middle East. They're avoiding West Asia

right now. They don't want to deal with the risk of being anywhere near this war the US and Israel

started. So it sounds like Saudi Arabia has options to avoid the straight of war moves. But in

reality, the situation is much more complex. Now Bloomberg pointed out that Iraq also has a pipeline

that runs from its semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to a major port in Turkey. However, due to the war

Iraq suspended exports via this route. And even if it had not suspended the operations,

it's likely this pipeline would not be an option either because the Trump administration is trying

to blackmail and pressure the Kurdish fighters in Northeastern Iraq to join the US. The CIA is

talking about training them and arming them to go and fight against Iran to invade Iran across

the Iran-Iraq border. Now, there are reports that some of the Iraqi Kurdistan leaders are against

this proposal because they don't want to get involved in the war. Maybe the CIA gets some mercenaries

who are willing to join. But regardless, this region is also now part of the war. So sending oil

through this pipeline is also very dangerous because it could be sabotaged. So that is also not a

realistic possibility to avoid the straight of war moves. And then Bloomberg pointed out that

Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have no other option but to ship their oil through the straight of

war moves. And even if Iran decides not to attack ships that go through the strait, most shipping

companies and insurance companies are just avoiding the region altogether. Many insurance companies

have cancelled their coverage for the straight of war moves. It is way too risky and you're not

going to get a shipping company that spends millions and millions of dollars trying to send

all this oil through a narrow strait in a war zone if they don't have insurance because they

could lose all of their investment. So again, for all practical purposes, the straight of

war moves is closed until this war ends. Iran has the leverage here. Now, for his part, Donald Trump

refuses to accept this reality. And the White House announced in response to the closure of

the straight of war moves that it had ordered the US development finance corporation to provide

at a reasonable price risk insurance for all shippers. And Trump even said that the US Navy will

escort tankers through the straight of war moves. I do not think this is actually going to happen.

Iran's response to this proposal was fine. We dare you go ahead and do it. We will sink those

ships. So I think this is very unlikely. I think this is simply for public relations reasons,

like many of the things the US government does. It's trying to reassure insurance companies and

shipping companies telling them don't worry. But the US Navy is very likely not going to do this

because then Iran will target the US Navy ships going through the straight of war moves.

Now, on the other side, there's a very interesting geopolitical angle here, which is there reports

that China has been in talks with Iran to allow China to send tankers through the straight of

war moves with Tehran ensuring safe passage. I honestly am very skeptical about this. Now,

certainly it's true that the Iranian and the Chinese governments have good relations and they

trust each other. But that said, this is an ongoing war zone. Very few shipping companies and

insurance companies are going to risk this. Even many Chinese companies are probably desperately

trying to avoid the region at the moment. So I'm skeptical as to whether this will actually work.

But this brings us to another important geopolitical issue here, which is the country's most

affected by the closure of the straight of war moves. Because earlier, I talked about the

impact on the US economy, but this war is impacting the global economy. And in fact, the countries

that are the most impacted by the closure of the straight of war moves are actually in Asia.

So the biggest purchaser of oil traveling through the straight of war moves is actually China.

India is the second biggest and other major importers include South Korea and Japan.

The vast majority of oil and also LNG that goes through the straight of war moves actually

goes to Asia. However, China is in a much better spot than many other countries in Asia,

because China has a socialist system with a government that intervenes very heavily in the economy.

And the Chinese government for decades, not just recently, for decades, the Chinese government

has maintained important stockpiles of strategic commodities like oil. So last September,

2025, Bloomberg published an article titled, why is China stockpiling so much oil? Now again,

as I've said, this is not a new policy for China. In fact, every few years, the Western media

publishes another article asking, why is Xi Jinping building secret commodity stockpiles?

This is an article from 2024 in the economist, but it pointed out that China has vast

holdings of grain, natural gas, and oil. China has also been stockpiling other important commodities

such as critical minerals, including copper. So this is not just an energy issue and it's not

just a food issue. Obviously, for energy security and food security, China wants to maintain

these strategic reserves, but it also stockpiles important critical minerals because China is the

world's manufacturing superpower, and it needs lots and lots of minerals. So again, China has a

socialist system. It's a socialist market economy, but the state maintains these strategic

reserves of important commodities, especially when there are geopolitical moments of crisis,

like we saw with Trump's trade war against China, but also after the US and Israel waged the

12-day war against Iran, another war of aggression in June 2025, planners in Beijing could clearly see

that it was likely there was going to be another war, so they increased their purchases of oil

for their strategic reserves, which by the way is what all governments should do if you actually

have wise leadership that engages in strategic planning over the long term, which of course

in Washington is impossible because everyone is focused on what's happening this day or this week.

They can't even think about a few months ahead, yet alone years or decades ahead, but it's not

just on this issue of stockpiling important commodities. Also, China has invested more than the rest

of the world combined in massively building out wind and solar power capacity and also nuclear

energy in other forms of low carbon or carbon-free emissions, not just because of climate change,

which I mean is important, China unlike the US actually takes its international commitments

in the Paris Agreement very seriously, and China is reducing its carbon emissions, but it's not

just that. This is also an issue of national security and economic security for China, because China

is the world's largest importer of oil, and that makes it very vulnerable to these kinds of

global supply shocks like we see with the war against Iran. So China has been trying to increase

its own domestic energy production through solar and wind and also through the electrification

of cars. If you visit a major Chinese city, you will now see that many of the cars in the road

are electric vehicles, and that means that China does not need to import as much oil. So China

has been carefully planning and preparing for these kinds of geopolitical crises. China is in a

much better situation than many other countries in Asia that rely on importing oil from the Persian

Gulf that passes through the straight of Hormuz. An example of a country that is in a much

worse position is India. The Indian government does not have nearly the same level of capacity

for strategic planning that China has, and this is why India, which by the way is currently governed

by a right-wing Trump ally, Narendra Modi, he's freaking out and Modi asked Trump to give India a

waiver to give permission to India to buy Russian oil, which by the way is insane and like borderline

colonial, why does India need permission from the US to buy oil? India is supposed to be a sovereign

country, but we've seen that under the right-wing BJP party and under Narendra Modi, India has

moved closer to the US. It hasn't completely abandoned its non-aligned foreign policy, but India

has moved closer to the US, especially under Trump, and India by the way has abandoned its historical

previous support for Palestine and Modi and the BJP have strongly supported Israel. But what's

funny about all of this is previously India was buying oil from Russia at a 5% discount. This is

a report I'm looking at from 2025. However, after India asked for the US to give it an exemption to buy

oil from Russia, Moscow said to India, fine, we will sell you our oil, but we will no longer give you

the discount because Russia was quite angry because just several weeks before the US and India

signed a trade deal and Trump revealed that as part of this trade deal, the Modi regime in India

agreed to US pressure to reduce its imports of Russian oil. Again, this was just a few weeks before

India begged the US government to give them an exemption to import Russian oil once again. This is

absolutely humiliating for the Modi regime and BJP in India and shows once again how it's always a

bad idea to ally too closely with the US because the US regime does not care one bit about its

so-called allies and will burn them anytime it's convenient. But it's not just India that's in this

difficult situation. Other long time US so-called allies are also being hurt by this US

Israeli war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. South Korea is another country

that is very dependent on importing oil that comes through the Strait of Hormuz and now South Korea

is freaking out because South Korean industry is being hurt by the lack of oil which is not only

needed to power automakers for instance, but also petrochemical companies and chips companies.

But it's not just US allies in Asia but also the so-called US allies in Europe because now

just a few years after a major energy crisis that caused a cost of living crisis in Europe.

Now the continent is facing yet another energy crisis and an inflation shock due to the US Israeli

war on Iran causing oil prices to skyrocket. This is one reason why the EU is now begging

Ukraine to give it access to a pipeline carrying drum roll Russian oil. This is the biggest irony of

all is the US caused this massive energy crisis in the world due to a war of choice, a war of

aggression that was totally unnecessary which is causing a massive energy crisis and an inflation

shock in Europe. So Europe is desperate to find alternative sources of oil and Europe is now

trying to get oil from Russia which previously it had boycotted due to the war in Ukraine.

And by the way speaking of Ukraine, the NATO-backed regime in Kiev is also working very closely with

the Gulf monarchies, these brutal dictatorships in the Gulf which shows once again how Ukraine does not

actually care one bit about democracy and human rights and scare quotes. The Ukrainian regime

is sending Ukrainian military experts to help the Persian Gulf dictatorships, these monarchies,

counter Iran's retaliation. So just as Ukraine supported Israel as it brutally bombed Gaza and

Ukraine did not issue one word of criticism which shows once again how Ukraine does not care one

bit about human rights. Well now Ukraine is allying with some of the most brutal dictatorships

on earth. This is the reality of geopolitics. If you believe this childish western propaganda

about democracy and human rights and those simplistic facile narratives, I'm sorry,

you cannot understand what's actually happening today in geopolitics. But as I start to wrap up

here, the conclusion that you should take from all of this is that the countries that are the

most hurt by this US-Israeli war of aggression, war of choice against Iran, is not ironically Iran

itself. The countries that are the most hurt are the longtime US so-called allies including the

Persian Gulf dictatorships and Europe and India and South Korea and Japan. These are all the major

US allies. And in the last few minutes here, I want to say a bit more about these Persian Gulf

dictatorships because in the past several years, especially the UAE has had a lot of success in

rebranding itself. Dubai is a great example of this. Dubai has been very successful in spreading

propaganda and convincing rich people that they should move to Dubai in order one to avoid taxes

in their home countries. But two, they say in Dubai, you can live a life of luxury and you can

live in beautiful hotels and apartments and you'll have a bunch of slaves and servants who will do

whatever you want. And this is attracted some of the richest people in the world who while this war

is going on are doing propaganda on Instagram and social media and telling people, no, don't flee,

don't run away. This is still such a safe place and the glorious kings who run these horrific

dictatorships, they are protecting us. We love those kings. But in reality, these Gulf dictatorships

are some of the most horrific regimes on earth. And I need to emphasize this point. A lot of people

don't know this. If you look at the composition of the countries in the GCC, the Persian Gulf countries,

you can see that a majority of the people who live in these countries are not nationals. They do not

have citizenship. They are not from these countries. The vast majority, especially in the UAE and

Qatar, 90% of the people who live in these countries are foreign nationals. And the rich expats,

of course, they do live lives of luxury, but the vast majority of the people in these countries

are migrant workers who are basically treated like slaves. And this is especially the case for poor

migrant workers from South Asia and Southeast Asia, from countries like India, Pakistan,

Bangladesh, and the Philippines. They are treated like slaves. They are trapped in what is known as

the Kaffala system, where their migration status is closely tied to their employer. And many of

the companies that employ them are notoriously brutal. They often take away their passports,

trapping these poor migrant workers in these countries so they can't leave. And then they treat

them in horrific conditions, often putting like dozens of people in bunk beds and these cramped rooms

with horrific conditions like mold. They don't give them enough food. Like 20 people have to share

one bathroom. They are treated horrifically like slaves. And then they are forced to make all of the

beautiful skyscrapers and all of the beautiful cutting edge infrastructure and the world cup stadium.

And we never hear about the horrific abuses of these modern day slaves of these poor migrant

workers that are the people who actually keep these gulf regimes running. The beautiful skyscrapers

that you see on Instagram were built by breaking the backs of these poor exploited slaves.

So what this war in the region has done in part is crack the mask on the face of these horrific

regimes in the gulf. And it's been a wake up call to many of the rich expats who are now fleeing.

And it's going to take a long time for these horrific gulf dictatorships to rebrand themselves

and to win back this image that they spent billions of dollars over years by sweeping under the rug

the horrific abuses and slavery that these dictatorships are based on. So as I conclude here,

I have to say that looking back at Iran's strategy of asymmetric warfare, I think it's been quite

successful just in the beginning of this war and who knows how long it will continue. But Iran

recognized that it could not actually hit the US directly, but the US Empire had major points

of vulnerability. One of those biggest points was these horrific gulf regimes, these gulf dictatorships

that have been propped up by the US Empire for decades. And it is a very real possibility

that one of the major outcomes of this war is that some of these regimes surrounding Iran start

to rethink the fact that they're hosting US military bases. And they may even start thinking about

trying to close these US military bases, which would accomplish one of Iran's most important

long term strategic goals, which is kicking the US military occupiers out of the region.

That would be a massive victory for Iran. I'm only speaking hypothetically here, no one knows

it will actually happen. And then another major victory for Iran would be actually responding,

retaliating to Israel because for decades, Israel has constantly carried out so many attacks against

Iran, not only against Iranian military and political leaders, but against Iranian scientists.

But in the past, Tehran had abided by what it referred to as a strategic patience doctrine,

where Iran recognized that the US and Israel would constantly attack because they wanted escalation.

The US and Israel wanted to provoke Iran into a regional war, exactly what we're seeing today.

And Iran did not take the bait when the US attacked, when the US, for instance, bombed Iran's

consulate in Syria or in 2025, when the US and Israel waged the 12-day war against Iran.

And all of those cases, and there are many others, Iran did not escalate. It showed a strategy

of strategic patience. But now what we're seeing today is that Iran has abandoned that strategy,

and Iran is hitting hard. It's hitting Israel, and it's hitting the Gulf regime's hard.

It's hitting the US military bases hard. And the result of all of this is that now Iran has nominated

the Sun of the previous Supreme Leader Ali Kaminay to be the new Supreme Leader. His name is Mojtaba

Kaminay, and Mojtaba Kaminay is actually seen as a less moderate figure. This might surprise

people who believe Western media propaganda. But Ali Kaminay, the previous Supreme Leader,

was actually seen as a relatively moderate figure in Iran. He after all was the one who was promoting

this doctrine of strategic patience. And Ali Kaminay had also issued a fatwa, a religious order

against nuclear weapons, saying that Iran should not pursue nuclear weapons because they were

un-Islamic because they could destroy the world, which is obviously horrific. But Ali Kaminay's

son Mojtaba is seen as a less moderate figure and more willing to respond, to retaliate,

to defend Iran's sovereignty against these constant US-Israeli attacks. And even more importantly,

Mojtaba Kaminay allegedly, reportedly, is not as ideologically opposed to nuclear weapons.

So it's very possible, the biggest irony of all of this is it's very possible that

after this war, if the Iranian government is not totally destroyed by the US-Israel,

if it withstands this war of aggression, it could come out actually even stronger,

and Iran could actually try to develop a nuclear weapon, which previously Iran was not doing.

This was admitted in an interview on CNN in March with the head of the IAEA, the International

Atomic Energy Agency. He admitted that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons under Ali Kaminay

despite the constant US-Israeli attacks and threats. So that's the note I'm going to end this

analysis with today. The ultimate irony of all is that this war that the US and Israel

launched against Iran will almost certainly lead Tehran to developing an actual nuclear weapon,

which it was not doing before, but the logical conclusion the Iranian government will take from

this is that it needs a nuclear deterrent like North Korea. This is why North Korea still exists

as a country. This is why the US has never invaded North Korea and attacked North Korea ever

since it got nuclear weapons. So that is the biggest conclusion you should take away from this

analysis today, along with one other conclusion, which is the countries that have been the most hurt

by this US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran or US allies in the Persian Gulf monarchies

in Europe and East Asian allies like Japan and South Korea and also India. They're the countries

that economically have been hurt the most. Along with average working class Americans,

who now are going to have to spend much more of their paycheck on gasoline and basic essentials

in everyday life like food as the cost of living skyrocket because of this energy crisis caused

by a US war of choice, a US war of aggression launched by Donald Trump. In the meantime,

the people who benefit the most are the military industrial complex and fossil fuel corporations.

As always, it's the capitalist oligarchs, the richest people in society who are benefiting from war

while the poorest people are the ones who are the most hurt by war. It's a tale as old as time.

On that note, I'm going to conclude. I am Ben Norton. I am the Editor-in-Chief of Geopolitical

Economy Report. I want to thank everyone for joining me today. Please like and subscribe.

Please share this. I will see you all next time.