US War Games in Hormuz Strait: Profit Motive Behind Escalation with Iran
CBS News recently outlined hypothetical US military operations to "reopen" the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global oil shipments. This report, framed as a discussion of logistics by national security analyst Aaron MacLean, emerges amidst heightened US-Israeli naval exercises in the Persian Gulf and explicit threats against Iran’s shipping lanes, following recent Israeli provocations
and the targeted killings of Iranian scientists and military personnel. This latest sabre-rattling aligns with a well-established blueprint: escalate tensions with Iran, then present US military intervention as the necessary solution to 'stabilize' energy markets. The immediate financial beneficiaries are clear. Futures trading on crude oil typically sees a bump during such periods of manufactured
instability, enriching major Western energy firms and their associated financial institutions. This isn't about freedom of navigation; it's about controlling resource flows and profiting from engineered scarcity, a strategy honed after the 1973 oil crisis when the US began actively intervening in Middle Eastern energy politics. The narrative consistently omits the fact that Iran, despite facing 45
years of US sanctions designed to cripple its economy, has consistently maintained its commitment to international maritime law, only ever threatening the Strait in direct response to existential threats to its sovereignty or blockades of its own oil exports. The US, a direct participant and joint aggressor alongside Israel, utilizes its Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, to project force in