3 weeks ago I argued the US goal in Iran is to seize the global oil spigot. Venezuela in January -> Iran in February.
Neutralize every supply channel outside the dollar system within 90 days. Achieve a compliant successor government and complete energy dominance.
The oil thesis was the obvious layer. However, when you zoom out & view the last four years as a single sequence rather than isolated geopolitical events, the architecture of the grander US plan becomes visible.
1st was Europe, which laid the groundwork.
The Ukraine conflict provided the justification for sanctions that collapsed Russian pipeline gas from 150 billion cubic meters to 40.
Then Nordstream was destroyed, which rewired the entire European energy system permanently. The US went from supplying 28% of Europe's LNG in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million MTs, the 1st country in history to break 100 MT.
Europe was transformed from a customer with options into a captive market now purchasing its survival in USD.
2nd was Syria.
The fall of Assad severed the critical node connecting China's Belt & Road Initiative to the Mediterranean.
The trilateral railway linking Iran, Iraq & Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was completely destroyed.
This isolated Iran geographically & cleared the path for what came next.
3rd was Venezuela.
In January the US effectively took control of the world's largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast has the most advanced refining complex on earth, specifically built for heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero & the rest are now positioned to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude daily.
The US captured a massive strategic reserve & solidified its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, an industry worth $110 billion in 2025 alone.
Venezuela & Iran were the two major oil supply channels that existed outside the dollar system. Both produce heavy crude sold primarily to China & evaded US financial supervision. Both now being neutralized within 90 days, which leads us to..
4th is Iran & the Middle East energy shock.
Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar's Ras Laffan, the single largest LNG facility on earth, responsible for a fifth of global supply. QatarEnergy's own assessment is that 17% of export capacity is gone and recovery will take up to 5 years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices spiked 70%. Asian spot prices doubled.
The only remaining scaled supplier? The United States.
If Iran falls & a successor government is installed that the US controls or influences (the Delcy model described weeks ago) then roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million is effectively under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the US coalition is now the marginal producer. Now add the gas dimension & it goes beyond oil.
This war is solidifying the petrodollar system as it evolves into a hybrid petro/LNG-dollar. The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long term contracts & regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply relationships for decades. Europe & the Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) cannot pivot away as there is nowhere left to pivot to. They're now locked into the US energy system.
The market confirms this. DXY went from 96 to 101. Gold down ~20% from its January all time high. Bitcoin down 20% on the year. Brent above $100. European & Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and crypto to buy dollars because they need dollars to buy the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy in American currency. The dollar is now being weaponized through energy dependency.
The structural repricing is happening regardless of how the conflict resolves.
But the US grand strategy goes deeper..
Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily provided by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium & rare earths.
By choking the Strait of Hormuz & crippling Middle Eastern LNG & helium production, the US is systematically degrading China's ability to power its data centers & fabricate semiconductors at scale.
The US is energy self sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves & expanding Gulf Coast capacity running on domestic gas.
On the other hand, China is import dependent & every joule it imports effectively now transits chokepoints the US Navy controls..
Iran was the Belt & Road's overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized that corridor is severed. China faces a world where its compute infrastructure competes for scraps on a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy.
Russia is next in the sequence. A post-war Iran reopening under US influence competes directly with Russia for the same refineries in China & India at lower cost. Iran's production costs are lower. Russia loses its last structural advantage in heavy crude & its economic lifeline. Additionally, under the Iran war cover, Ukraine has been opportunistically destroying Russian energy infrastructure & all signs point towards Russia being at the end of the line. The message from Washington becomes very simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to get crushed, sign the Ukraine deal.
Then Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. Complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG-dollar fortified, Iran cleared, Russia cornered, & China facing the Malacca Trap fully closed with no remaining energy bypass.
Israel & the GCC are absorbing the kinetic cost of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, counter to the mainstream narrative, is actually America (First). Qatar offline for 5 years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of US exporters for the remainder of the decade. The Gulf states face years of rebuilding. Europe faces its 2nd energy crisis in four years.
Sure, the average American might face temporary moderate inflation & higher gas prices. But if you are the architect of the US empire & you view the rise of China & Chinese ASI as an existential winner takes all scenario, the collateral damage is acceptable cost.
Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls the monetary system & the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that determines which civilization builds ASI first.
The US is seizing all 3.
