Oil prices surged past $100 a barrel this week as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran threatens global energy supplies and the broader economy. Iranian officials say no oil will be allowed to leave the Middle East until the bombardment stops, raising fears of disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas flows. This comes as Israel has struck oil depots in Tehran, blanketing the capital in smoke and toxic rain.
“What we’re seeing is just one of the clearest depictions yet of the frailty of a global order that is grounded in fossil fuels. All sides in this war are using fossil fuels as a weapon of war,” says independent investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz, who reports on energy and climate.
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Fear is mounting over the fate of worldwide energy markets and the global economy as oil prices on Monday soared to nearly $120 per barrel due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, before dropping. Iranian officials have said no oil would be allowed out of the Middle East until the bombardments cease, with President Trump Monday threatening to hit Iran, quote, “20 times harder” if it continues to block the passage of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. In an interview with CBS yesterday, Trump said he’s also considering taking over the strait. During a news conference earlier today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made similar threats, saying Iran would be attacked, quote, “harder than ever,” unquote, if it continues to disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has retaliated by targeting energy infrastructure and U.S. military bases across Gulf nations.
For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Antonia Juhasz, independent investigative journalist, regular Rolling Stone politics reporter, author of several books on fossil fuel industry, including The Bush Agenda and The Tyranny of Oil.
Antonia, you have long reported on wars for oil. Talk about what’s happening here. And it doesn’t just involve the Gulf. It involves China. It involves oil in Russia and more.
ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah, thank you, Amy, and thank you, Juan. It’s good to be with you.
I think what we’re seeing is just one of the clearest depictions yet of the frailty of a global order that is grounded in fossil fuels. All sides in this war are using fossil fuels as a weapon of war. The Iranians are, of course, retaliating against the Israelis and the Americans by targeting energy infrastructure, by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, by saying, “We’re going to drive up the price of oil, and we’re going to try to cut off supply, to make this an unbearable war for you.” The Israelis, backed by the Americans, have retaliated, directly targeting oil depots, directly targeting oil infrastructure.
It was the bombing of the oil depots in Tehran, with millions of residents, that has led to this sort of horrific, apocalyptic reality of the bombing of the oil infrastructure releasing plumes of toxic smoke, rain coming down through the smoke and then carrying those toxins onto people, onto the environment, into soil, into water. I mean, I have been on this show many times talking about the harms and the toxicity of fossil fuels, reporting from Cancer Alley in Louisiana. Cancer Alley got its name because of the harms associated to people who live near fossil fuel production. This is, you know, that harm on a magnified scale. And as you said in the beginning, also targeting petrochemical complexes, these are, you know, fossil fuel-based facilities, as well, that turn fossil fuels into petrochemicals. These are massive facilities. And, of course, the entire area around Iran and in Iran is an incredibly energy-rich environment that is being—that is being targeted for its fossil fuels. And fossil fuels are being used in retaliation.
You know, after—in the initial lead-up to and the invasion by Russia of Ukraine, Russia used fossil fuels as a weapon of war in exactly the same way that Iran is doing now. It restricted the flow of product, and it attempted to drive up price and reduce supply. And it has targeted fossil fuel infrastructure throughout Ukraine, and Ukraine has actually done its best to try and target fossil fuel infrastructure in Russia.
But in response to that invasion, Ukrainians initially put out a call that the world actually picked up, which was, “We need to end our reliance on fossil fuels, because fossil fuels are fueling the Russians’ ability to wage war and Russians’ ability to use fossil fuels as a weapon.” And around the world, we actually saw a response to that. We saw policies put in place to try and get off of fossil fuels. Trump aligned with Russia to immediately reverse that progress and those policies, and has instead launched the United States into at least two, but we could keep counting, wars or excursions, in his words, that are about and grounded in and accelerate the continued reliance on fossil fuels. We have Venezuela. We obviously have also Iran and the rest of the Middle East.
And the implications are, you know, extreme, of course. You have the immediate human health harms, security harms in Iran, throughout the Middle East, from the war, from the targeting, of course, of the infrastructure. You also have the ongoing harms of what it means to have that fossil fuel pollution continue to impact soil and water and the health of people, and then, of course, our continued deep dependence on fossil fuels.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Antonia, you mentioned these two military attacks, all occurring this year, on Venezuela, with the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and on Iran now, with the third-largest reserves in the world. And so, is it your sense that the Trump administration is essentially now becoming not only an empire, but an empire seeking to control world oil supplies?
ANTONIA JUHASZ: You know, I think that the two wars, military—uses of the military are not identical. Of course, Iran has long been a target of, obviously, the Israelis and of the Americans, and sometimes for the same reasons and sometimes for different reasons, and sometimes for reasons that support each other, and sometimes they don’t necessarily support each other. But the source of Iran’s power is certainly its fossil fuels and its control of fossil fuels. And if you want to—if you want to take those fossil fuels, if you’re U.S. oil companies, that’s a goal. If you’re a U.S.—
AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds, Antonia.
ANTONIA JUHASZ: Oh, but also if you want to deflate Iran’s power, going after its fossil fuels is one of the key ways to do that. And that’s clearly an agenda that’s being advanced by this administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Antonia, we’re going to do Part 2 of this discussion and put it online at democracynow.org. Antonia Juhasz, independent investigative journalist, regular Rolling Stone politics reporter. We’ll continue after the broadcast. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
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