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OPINION
There are numerous aspects and ramifications of the conflict between Iran and the U.S. and Israel. One of them is that the interests of the U.S. and Israel, which in the past have aligned seamlessly, are not necessarily congruent in context of the growing competition between the U.S and China.
As of this writing, the ability of the U.S. to service its massive (and growing) debt and to spend beyond its means depends on the dollar’s role as reserve currency of the world (RCW). In recent years that privilege -not a perpetual right or entitlement- was imperiled when a growing number of central banks began to reduce their dollar reserves, a process known as de-dollarization. At the end of 2025 Iran and Venezuela, heavily sanctioned by the U.S., were selling oil to China in yuan. That reduced the global demand for dollars and, by extension, threatened the liquidity flowing into Wall Street. As of the latter part of June 2026, the situation has been fundamentally redressed. Now Venezuela and (on and off) Iran are allowed to sell their oil in U.S. petrodollars. This strengthens the dollar as RCW and recycles dollars to the U.S. to help pay over $1.2 trillion annually (about $3.3 billion per day) gross interest expense on its growing national debt. So, irrespective of any obvious aversion to the war’s tragic consequences, it’s only fair to give credit where credit is due. For the foreseeable future Mr. Trump’s actions have indeed succeeded in parrying a lethal threat to the U.S. economy, and by extension, to its continued existence as a functional state.
There are of course other aspects to consider. One is that the role of oil is bound to decline irreversibly as China and the rest of the world embrace, over time, other forms of energy. Paradoxically, this trend makes all oil-producing countries, including Russia, the U.S. and Iran, ironic bedfellows as they face this unavoidable reality. What’s worse, so far, no alternate plan to deal with it has been made available to the public for comprehensive scrutiny. As a result, chaos is on the horizon.
China’s efforts to expand solar/battery and nuclear energy alternatives to wean itself from oil, while commendable, does not alter the fact that with nearly 20% of the global population, it only has about 6% of the world’s freshwater resources. India, even more populous than China, has access to only about 4% of the world’s freshwater resources. In addition, the great aquifers of the world are quickly being depleted, which is sure to eventually impact food production; and desalination, a necessity in areas such as the Middle East and Southern California, has serious disadvantages.
The Israel/Iran conflict has a unique dynamic. Israel’s policy to not allow an independent Palestinian state and to gradually absorb the West Bank (called Judea and Samaria in Israel) rests on its ability to assert and enforce it. To do so, it must perpetually maintain its qualitative superiority in terms of military power over any combination of Middle Eastern states, including Iran; that requires unwavering and perpetual U.S. financial and military support. In other words, Israel appears to aim to live in a permanent state of war and to win all its battles. At best, that seems imprudent and unrealistic. Alliances, like sands in the desert, can shift without warning, and no country or empire, including Rome, ever won all its battles.
One reason the Palestinians have not mustered the power and clout to create a fully independent and sovereign state is that they’ve never had a patron supporter to counter the U.S.-Israel alliance. For example, in its heyday the Soviet Union stopped short of providing Egypt and Syria the necessary air or nuclear power to defeat Israel. Iran is the exception; and given the world’s track record on proliferation of weapons, there’s no telling just how powerful they’ll eventually become and how they’ll use that power. On that note, it might be prudent for Israel to fine tune its policy so that mutual respect and survival, not dominance, becomes its prime directive.
Lastly, it’s worth asking if the horror of the Strait of Hormuz would have impacted the world to the degree it has, had the world developed the means to replace oil with green hydrogen from electrolysis of seawater. This is even more self-evident given that hydrogen can be used to create the water that will soon be needed worldwide as, exacerbated by climate change, the great aquifers dwindle and our food supply declines. The book above describes how and why this could be done, gradually and imperceptibly.