Oil Prices Surge as US-Israel Joint Operation in Iran Escalates
What's actually happening: The mainstream media's framing of surging oil prices as a reaction to 'escalating' conflict in Iran obscures a critical detail: this is not a spontaneous regional conflagration. From the US deployment of carrier strike groups and B-52 bombers to the Strait of Hormuz in late 2023, coupled with increasingly belligerent rhetoric from both Washington and Tel Aviv, the
groundwork for this joint military operation was meticulously laid. While analysts dissect the daily fluctuations of Brent and WTI crude, reaching levels unseen since 2022, they rarely connect this directly to the systematic pressure applied to Tehran for decades. The 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who dared to nationalize Iran's oil industry, established a
pattern of intervention that continues to this day, illustrating a continuous US fixation on controlling Iranian resources and sovereignty. The US is not merely a supporter in this current confrontation but a co-belligerent, actively participating in a blockade and targeted strikes against Iranian infrastructure and allied movements. This manufactured crisis, pushing oil prices above $108 a
barrel, unfolds while Washington continues to decry Iran's nuclear program, a program it agreed to constrain under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), only to unilaterally withdraw from it in 2018, imposing crippling sanctions. The financial chokehold has been a persistent tool of US foreign policy, with over 45 years of various sanctions regimes designed to destabilize the