Gulf War: From spark to fallout

The long-simmering animosity between once-upon-a-time allies now mortal enemies United States and Iran has finally boiled over into a full scale war of missiles and drones mercilessly raining down on the hapless populace of the Gulf states in equal measure regardless of alliances.

This no-holds-barred conflict, fueled by US-backed Israel’s biblical enmity for their Persian and a handful of Arab neighbors, has dragged to heretofore unknown depths of hell and misery their people and along with them the rest of the world, to an unprecedented turbulent era of soaring global oil prices which is threatening to derail the world’s economic order.

How did this all begin? In a word, OIL, Iran’s most valuable asset. Until the whole of mankind is able to efficiently tap the solar power of the sun and the non-carbon natural resources of the earth for energy, oil will still be a significant source for energizing the machines and technology that provide man the lifestyle that we now take for granted. And control of the oil-rich geography of Persia and its lucrative fields of black liquid gold is the strategic key to wealth and power. Inevitably, its oil became easy pickings for the great colonial powers of the 1900s.

The history of Iran’s relationship with the West dates back to 1850, when America ironically played the role of staunch defender of Iran’s national interests, which was then in the jaws of two imperialists, Great Britain and Russia, clawing at each other for control of the vast oil reserves.

This defender-protectorate relationship between the US and Iran lasted for more than a century highlighted by America’s support for the forcible ouster of the democratically elected nationalist president, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the oil industry, to install a more pliant Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

An interesting historical footnote seems to suggest that the February 2026 strike by the US and Israel against Iran was taken from the same playbook that saw the nationalization of the oil and the withdrawal of Great Britain from the Iranian oil market coupled with the inability of Mossadegh to secure an alternate market trigger an economic crisis that caused massive demonstrations that provided the US and Great Britain an excuse to support the coup that eventually toppled Mossadegh.

The headlines we are now seeing are mixed, with some suggesting that the fearsome massive onslaught of the US on Iranian power facilities is working, while other reports predict a more stubborn resistance by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that could prolong the conflict.