Who Controls Oil Controls the World

As salaamu alaykum, Dear readers, on this 10th day of Shawwal, 1447 AH (March 29, 2026)

Some backgrounder on the Ramadan War on Iran, from Ben Norton’s interview with Michael Hudson (my comment starts after this):

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you mentioned that it’s for the last few years or decades; it has actually gone back half a century.

Already in the mid-1970s, when I was working for the Hudson Institute, on contracts with the Treasury, and the White House, and the Defense Department, I sat in on meetings, and they were discussing all along how ultimately the United States was going to have to take control of all of the Middle Eastern oil, and that entailed conquering Iran.

And in the mid-1970s, at one military meeting, for instance, Herman Kahn was explaining how probably Balochistan was the main opportunity to begin carving up Iran into subject ethnic constituencies. And Balochistan, in between Pakistan and Iran, was probably the best place to start a separatist movement. There were military plans.

My field, in the mid-1970s, was oil and the balance of payments. I had that position at Chase Manhattan Bank for many years. I actually was the only — I was so low on the totem pole, being a technician and in my mid-20s, that I was the only person who was allowed to see all of the operating details and statistics of the US oil companies, the major companies, so that I could make a calculation as to the role that oil played in the balance of payments, supporting the dollar.

This was right after the United States was forced off gold, in 1971, because of the Vietnam War.

So, the United States all along has realized that what you’re seeing today was going to be the endgame of consolidating, they hoped, American control over the Middle Eastern oil; and they wanted their because the central point, the strongest lever that American foreign policy has had for the last century, is control of the world’s oil trade.

Because it’s so immensely profitable for the American oil companies themselves — it has given the oil companies major control over US policy — and also the US economy’s potential control over other countries, by the ability to turn off the supply of oil to other countries, thereby stopping their electricity production, stopping their chemical production, their fertilizer production with natural gas.

The oil industry includes the gas industry, because they’re so closely interconnected. All of this has been thought out. And every year, the military has been upgrading the long-term plans for — well, if we really, have to use force to entail our control over the Near East, the Middle East; if, for any reason, the OPEC oil countries want to become independent of the United States, and begin investing their oil profits outside of the United States, instead of sending all of their oil earnings to the United States, to invest in Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, US bank deposits, and stock holdings; well, if any of them should want to exert their own sovereignty and go their own way, we’re going to have to take over; and no matter what, we’re going to have to take over Iran, because that is the most powerful, final locking point of US control.

And, as we have discussed before, in 2003, General Wesley Clark came right out and said, well, we’re going to conquer seven countries in five years, culminating with Iran.

So all of this has been completely open. This is not simply Donald Trump’s war. It’s a war which he decided at this time, because America has steadily been losing its position of economic strength, military strength, and arms supply, and missiles, and aircraft, and bombs, as a result of the war, first in Ukraine, and then supplying Israel.

So there will never be a less bad time to go to war than at the present. And of course, it is a bad time, but it’s not as bad as it’s going to be. And the military, the neocons behind the military and behind the Central Intelligence Agency, are not going to give up.

They say, “Well, what do we have to lose? If we don’t conquer the Middle Eastern oil now, then we’re going to be losing what has become the major lever of American foreign policy”.

Donald Trump believed that he could conquer Iran, within two to four weeks. He actually believe that.

And his hope was that, by that time he went on his scheduled trip to China, he could confront China, saying, “Well, we’ve just caused a regime change in Iran. We’ve appointed an Iranian client oligarch, client dictator to take over and become sort of Iran’s version of Boris Yeltsin, administering Iranian oil in the interests of the United States”.

“So, we now have the power to impose sanctions on you, China. We can cut off your oil. But, you know, we don’t want to do that. If you begin to export the raw materials, the gallium, the tungsten, and all the other things that we need for our military that you’ve put an export control on, then we will give you the oil”.

Trump had hoped to be able to present China with that victory. Well, obviously that’s gone. The military miscalculated, because they could not think of an alternative that would threaten this grand plan.

Remember all of the American military attacks, for the last 50 years, ever since Vietnam — all of the wars that the US had, from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela.

It has always been the United States and its allies, the coalition of the willing, against single countries. This is the first war that America has fought since World War Two where other countries that it’s fighting against are allied with each other.

It’s not just fighting against Iran now. It’s fighting against Iran, supported by Russia and China, because they all realize that this is a fight to the end, to decide: Is the United States going to be able to reassert its control over the world economy using monopolies? The oil monopoly, the information technology monopoly that it’s trying to do, the computer chip monopoly, the technology monopoly, also its ability to supply food to other countries, its exports and control of grain.

This is the last chance that it has. And there’s a feeling of desperation that has led the US planners to bet at all.

And that I think that it’s not going to work. All of the generals have told them that it’s not going to work. The generals who have been pessimistic have pretty much been forced out of the military, and the State Department, because, “If you’re pessimistic, well, why aren’t you on board? You know, why aren’t you on the team? Or are you Putin’s puppet? You know, you’ve just gotta have faith”.

America believed that it could not lose any war because its policy of bombing other countries was always going to work.

The American philosophy is, number one, you bomb civilians; you break all the rules of international law which are against that. You bomb civilians to demoralize them.

And if you concentrate, as Trump did along with Israel, a few weeks ago, you bomb the schools; you bomb the hospitals. That’s American policy in foreign countries.

It’s most visible in the case of Israeli policy, in Gaza, and now the West Bank as well. And it is the same policy that the United States has followed in Iran.

Well, the idea was that this would demoralize the population, and the Iranian population would want to get rid of the ayatollahs and say, “We don’t want to be bombed anymore; we want to save the children; let’s make a deal and appoint a leader favorable to the United States so that it will stop bombing us”.

Well, this was nonsense from the beginning, but it was the guiding spirit of American foreign policy: bomb a country, and that will lead to a regime change, and a collapse.

That was what America expected in Russia.

But Iran essentially has the same spirit that Patrick Henry had in America’s revolution against Britain in 1776. He said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”. And that’s exactly what Iran is saying.

For them, this is existential, because they know what the US plans are, since the United States has been so open about what its plans are.

Yes, they want a regime change; they want to break up Iran into parts; they want to take control of Iranian oil and use the oil export revenues to support the US dollar, and to support basically the US economy, and to give American foreign policy the option of turning off the oil to other countries, to say, “We can close down your industry, your chemical industry, all your industries that need electric power, oil, gas; we can do all that, if you take an independent policy, following your own sovereignty. And we in the United States reject the United Nations principle that every nation has its own sovereignty”.

This is the basic principle of Western civilization for the last half century, the basic principle of the United Nations Charter. All of that is being rejected by the United States.

And what it has done is galvanize other countries to recognize that, well, yes, this really is the final conflict.

This is a conflict, in Iran, to determine what will the shape of the international economy be? Is it going to restore American control of the oil trade, and give it the chokepoint over the international economy that it’s looking for? Or are we going to be independent of the United States?

That’s what this this war is all about.

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My comments:

But desire for control of oil goes back farther than the 1970s. Both World Wars were about oil - about who controls their own energy supplies and the increasingly valuable ability to choke other nation’s supply.

Following his meeting with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta in February 1945, FDR went directly to the Great Bitter Lake in Suez to meet with Saudi King ibn Saud and gave him a plane and a wheelchair. America was worried that Britain could gain control over Saudi oil, so tried to gain influence with the Saudis. FDR sent two more planes in the following months, which led to the establishment of the Kingdom’s national Airlines, Saudia Airlines.

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Iran is now in an existential struggle for its own survival. Iran wants the war, which it did not initiate, to end, but it doesn’t want it to restart again later on. It wants all the U.S. Empire’s bases out of the Near East (Middle East). Iran is fighting this fight, essentially all alone, on behalf of all peoples still free from the hegemony and vassalage of the U.S. and zionist-settler’s Empire. Many countries are now vassals of the zionists: USA, Australia, Canada, UK, EU, India, Japan, and others who choose not to resist.

Iran has been preparing for this war for almost 40 years, knowing what happened to it in the “Iran-Iraq” war, in which the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein to attack Iran (as per long-term U.S. designs), frequently using chemical warfare produced in Germany. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was martyred by zionist/U.S. bombing, fought in the trenches during that war, so was well aware of the tactics of the U.S./zionist Axis of Evil. A feature of the U.S. wars in this area - the Iran-Iraq war, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (2003) and the war on Afghanistan was enabling the U.S. to surround Iran with its military bases.

The “Weapons of Mass Destruction” excuse for that war on Iran was for public manipulation, the real reasons were that the U.S. cannot tolerate Gulf oil being sold in other currencies - Iraq was trying to sell it (I think) in Euros. As well, the zionits wanted Iraq broken so they stop hitting poor little Is___l with Scud missiles.

My notion as to why the U.S. attacked Iran at the present time has several aspects. One link relates to Venezuela - attacking both Iran and Venezuela is essential to control the oil supply to China, to weaken China in preparation for the eventual war on China, if you can imagine these jokers trying that! Another relates to that stinking little Bibi - he has wanted Iran as part of his “Greater Is___l” dream, for the past 40 years. As well, in the pedo-pres, he sees the opportunity to manipulate the stupidest U.S. president ever elected. In stinking Bibi’s last visit to the White House, I’m sure he told the pedo-pres that unless he attacks Iran immediately, Bibi will use his nukes. This is a new turn on the imagined “deterrence” aspect of nuclear weapons, using a threat of use as leverage to cause another party to go to war. Leave it to Bibi to come up with a new form of evil. The U.S. goal in Iran is to weaken it as a regional power, as it has been doing since the ‘70s, to break it up and control its resources, both for use, profit and for forcing other nations into vassalage. However, consider that the zionist’s wish for Greater Is___l is actually a cover for the same goal as the U.S., for control and manipulation of Near East oil, in Iran plus the Gulf States, in respect to their desire to eventually replace USA as the lead Evil Empire on the planet. In that regard, tricking the U.S. into this war may speed up their goal of a zionist world empire, which is already capturing many nations as vassals, as mentioned.

And the U.S. economy, already in a technical recession, will go into deep depression for a generation or more. Their non-productive economy, converted into an “entitlements” economy, will face deep poverty. And when the pickups can’t refuel, and you know how many guns they have, chaos will ensue.

The above points raised by Michael Hudson illustrate how the “petrodollar” pours the savings of the world into U.S. finances, which gives the U.S. the imaginary of having the world’s “greatest economy.” But with this flow of funds severely compromised, first by attacks on infrastructure followed by closing the Strait of Hormuz to enemy passage, the U.S. is facing extreme fiscal pressure. If that weren’t bad enough, the fat little Gulf monarchies are reinvesting their funds to the east, to places like China and Indonesia, avoiding the U.S. As well, in this past week, Japan has been forced to sell bonds to buy fuel, diminishing its support of the U.S. economy, and Japan has been the world’s largest U.S. creditor.

10-year bond rates are rising, due to rising risks. Market DEPTH is down 40%, U.S. Treasury yields underlie every part of world financial markets.

US$2T in past week wiped out of U.S. equities. Damage seems to be everywhere. 5th straight week of losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 5,000 points from its peak.

* Broad selloff: S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite slide into sustained decline

* Oil shock returns: Energy prices surge as supply disruption persists through the Strait of Hormuz

* Volatility spike: The VIX jumps above 30 — signaling systemic fear, not routine correction

* Tech unwind: Mega-cap leaders like Microsoft and NVIDIA flip from market drivers to liabilities

* Policy trap: The Federal Reserve loses room to cut rates as inflation pressures rise

* Capital hesitation: Rising yields suggest weakening demand for US Treasuries even during equity stress.

By now controlling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is re-emerging as a dominate world power, see Alastair Crooke, on Daniel Davis / Deep Dive, March 29. Ships may pass if they are friendly nations and pay the toll, and pass through the proper sea channels and show that their cargo is paid for in Chinese yuan. Again, this BREAKS the grip of the U.S. on the exorbitant privilege of the world-reserve currency. The world’s savings stop flowing into the USA’s military-industrial complex.

But the U.S. cannot learn from their coming defeat. “Washington” is incapable of “learning a lesson.” If they don’t suffer strategic defeat and unconditional surrender, they will just carry on in their pathetic attempts at world domination. This cycle can only be broken when it is totally broken. The American Empire was built on dominance - isra3l is merely a well-developed tool, which has evolved enough fascist ideals to provide influence and intel to the U.S. As Rumsfeld said (re Pentagon), I don’t run this place, MOSSAD does. These two dogs have co-evolved, one doesn’t wag the other’s tail; the lashing of both their tails is sending the world into depression.

BTW, I was just viewing the beautiful light-blue-green waters of the Persian Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, you can see that here: