Iran Will Win by Destroying the Petrodollar
The Third Gulf War will collapse the Western Alliance System born of the World Wars!
Ahnaf Ibn Qais watches the fires spread across the Strait of Hormuz as missiles arc across the sky, tankers burn in the narrow channel, & the long-assumed invincibility of American sea power dissolves into smoke, revealing the fragile foundations beneath the petrodollar order.
Western commentators keep repeating that Iranian air defences have collapsed & that Western airpower now operates freely above the battlefield, as though wars between durable states are decided by impressive sorties rather than by structural realities:
The confidence behind these claims reflects a familiar belief that technological sophistication & aerial bombardment alone can compel surrender, a belief that has repeatedly failed when directed against large & resilient societies with heavy industry…
Enthusiasts for this narrative point to successful strikes & spectacular footage while quietly ignoring the deeper logistical, geographical, & industrial constraints that ultimately determine the outcome of prolonged conflicts, as opposed to said spectacle:
Modern precision weapons can certainly destroy buildings, infrastructure, & radar sites, yet history demonstrates that complex societies rarely collapse simply because bombs fall from the sky, even if said explosive yields kill lots of civilians & do damage…
Rather, what One finds is that Wars between large states unfold over Time through slower processes of endurance, the regeneration of forces, & the ability of political systems to absorb disruption without losing cohesion, yielding an attritional contest…
Thus, once the Third Gulf War is examined through that structural lens, the confident predictions of imminent Iranian collapse begin to look less like analysis & more like wishful thinking by those utterly awed by their sundry narcissistic Ethnosolipsism:
The central strategic reality shaping the conflict is the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the most vital economic choke point in the global energy system… through which around 1/4+ or so of all Oil & Gas transit via many hundreds of ships & tankers…
This narrow maritime corridor normally carries a substantial share of the world’s traded Oil & Gas, meaning that any sustained disruption immediately reverberates across global markets, & does so in a superlinear fashion against ‘mature’ economies…
Once the strait becomes a missile-saturated battlespace filled with drones, naval mines, & coastal launch systems, reopening it is no longer a routine naval policing operation; & yet this is exactly where things are headed, given Iran’s policing actions!
Warships can certainly patrol the water in & around the Straits, but guaranteeing safe passage for thousands of commercial tankers within a corridor under constant drone threat is a more complex task… & is made nearly impossible by hundreds of ASBMs…
Every silly escort mission thereby places extremely valuable vessels within range of weapons designed to exploit the topography of Iran’s coastline… from which even routine artillery fire can spike insurance rates & make transit financially impossible:
The longer the Straits are closed, the greater the economic shock transmitted through the international energy markets & the greater the pressure on the Gulf export economies, as well as upon Asian satrapies of the US such as Japan & South Korea…
Iran hasn’t limited its strategy to maritime disruption alone but has expanded the battlefield by striking energy infrastructure across the Gulf states… meaning that the Operational objective is now counter-value, a la dealing permanent economic damage:
Oil terminals, gas processing facilities, pipelines, & associated logistics networks have all become targets in a campaign designed to disrupt the energy flows feeding European & Asian markets… all creditors & buyers of both American bonds & equities:
Hence, these attacks transform the conflict into a Brute Economic War that threatens the financial architecture built around global energy trade, & it isn’t merely ‘random violence for its own sake’ as some exceedingly naive Western analysts are now claiming…
By damaging the infrastructure that sustains energy exports, Iran thus applies pressure not only on regional states but also on the economic systems connected to those energy flows, & who can’t find sufficient & timely substitutes at scale & scope:
The strikes have also exposed how vulnerable infrastructure, once assumed to be secure under American protection, actually is when confronted with persistent missile & drone attacks that easily overwhelm Western defences using sheer numbers!
Across the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, military bases, airfields, radar installations, desalination plants, & industrial facilities have endured repeated strikes, & most of these facilities won’t be getting repaired anytime soon in the near future:
The destruction of these sundry Gulf facilities demonstrates that so-called ‘advanced defensive Technologies’ cannot completely shield fixed infrastructure when an opponent possesses large numbers of inexpensive, deployable, strike systems deployed en masse!
Even in Israel, whose missile defence architecture is among the most layered in the world, the mathematics of saturation has become increasingly apparent, as more & more cluster munitions & drones hit without meaningful opposition & timely sirens…
Defensive systems may intercept large numbers of sundry incoming threats, but every successful interception consumes many interceptors that must later be replaced through slow industrial processes, & is orders of magnitude more expensive to build!
The missiles & drones intercepted, by contrast, are far cheaper & can be produced in far higher numbers, especially by a society whose chief defensive doctrine leverages said inexpensive conventional deterrent deployed en masse nationwide for decades:
This differential yields a structural exchange ratio in which offensive systems can be regenerated faster than defences can be replaced (if they are even replaced at all, given America’s decades-long woes with procurement, supply chains, deindustrialization, etc.)…
Western doctrine depends heavily on a complex network of surveillance drones, radar systems, electronic warfare platforms, & command infrastructure… all vulnerable to high attrition rates against cheaper, more reliable, & easier-to-build Weapon systems!
These systems provide lots of situational awareness, yet they also represent high-value assets that require significant Time & industrial capacity to build... none of which exist in an increasingly hollowed-out America with its sundry socioeconomic woes!
When such so-called ‘high-value systems’ are attrited in combat, they can’t be replaced quickly, because procurement pipelines for advanced military Technology operate on timelines measured not in weeks but in years, sometimes even decades or never at all!
The destruction of even a modest number of radar platforms, surveillance drones, fighter jets, & electronic warfare systems thus yields effects that accumulate gradually but relentlessly over the duration of a conflict, especially in the short to medium term:
Each destroyed sensor node reduces the information awareness that Westerners depend on to coordinate airpower, missile defence, & maritime operations… de facto rendering them deaf, dumb & blind to a foe who already has the ‘Home Turf’ edge!
As those informational gaps widen, the effectiveness of otherwise sophisticated weapons systems begins to degrade because they increasingly operate with incomplete targeting data… & so the longer range aerial sorties get even more lacklustre!
The resulting erosion of situational awareness transforms what initially appears to be Western tech superiority into a fragile advantage that slowly unravels under sustained pressure... whereby Iran pounces, leveraging its overmatch in firepower in theatre…
At this juncture, Western commentators often argue that the missile threat will soon be neutralized by locating & destroying launch platforms, yet this facile argument misunderstands the distributed, improvisational Nature of modern launch systems!
Many missile & drone systems can be mounted on modified commercial vehicles that outwardly resemble ordinary civilian trucks & can therefore blend easily into normal traffic patterns, thus making them cheap, reliable, redundant & extremely ubiquitous!
Such vehicles can be modified in very short periods of Time & dispersed across wide areas, making the identification of all potential launch points extraordinarily difficult, not to mention utterly moot given the mass & volume of civilian vehicles involved!
Destroying One launcher using expensive stand-off munitions (many of which are irreplaceable outright!) doesn’t eliminate the underlying capability because new vehicles can be prepared & deployed faster than surveillance networks can identify them…
The battlefield thereby evolves into a constantly shifting web of mobile launch capacity rather than fixed installations that can be permanently eliminated, given the overall lack of ordnance & tonnage (in TNT-equivalent yield) on the attacking side!
Another structural imbalance shaping the conflict arises from the relation between incoming missiles & the interceptor systems designed to stop them, One that is best understood when both the financial & material conditions of both are considered:
Interceptor missiles are among the most technologically complex weapons ever produced, incorporating advanced sensors, precision guidance systems, & highly specialized manufacturing processes; they are de facto ‘White Elephant’ weaponry…
Because of the aforesaid complexities involved, they are produced slowly & in limited quantities, & stockpiles cannot be expanded rapidly once conflict begins…. That’s the Nature of said munitions, given the high-end materials & specialized labour needed…
Iran’s stockpile of missiles & drones, by contrast, often relies on comparatively simpler manufacturing processes & can therefore be produced in far greater numbers, using far simpler materials & reliant on a far more generalist & reliable labour supply…
When offensive systems outnumber defensive interceptors by large margins, missile defence networks face the constant risk of saturation regardless of their technical sophistication… which in turn means that spending all that money becomes a liability:
The implications of this financial & material imbalance in defence vs offence… have already become visible in the strain placed on defensive systems across the region, due to the mass deployment of cheap, reliable & easy to procure drones & missiles:
For even when interception rates remain high for the slower-moving projectiles sub Mach 5… the steady consumption of interceptors depletes inventories that cannot be replenished, which opens up attacks once more to said slower-moving projectiles!
& as stockpiles decline, defensive planners are forced to make increasingly difficult decisions about which targets receive protection & which must be left exposed… effectively entering a tactical Zugzwang in which neither pursuit can yield a victory!
Such lopsided tradeoffs reveal that missile defence isn’t simply a technological question but also an economic One… decisively showing that Low Energy Dominant modes of attack are the future when it comes to attriting legacy, expensive defences:
Over Time, the aforementioned brute arithmetics of attrition favour the side capable of producing more offensive systems at lower cost, & likewise the side that can then leverage said systems with sufficient mass & volume across the wider battlespace…
Another way in which the Third Gulf War is pointing towards outright strategic defeat for the United States & Israel is the absence of any realistic ground invasion option, given the Topographic realities of a large, High-elevation country like Iran:
No large coalition army currently exists in the theatre capable of launching a conventional land campaign across Iranian territory, for such a force would need to number well over a million to traverse through Iran’s enormous river-valley networks:
The mobilization alone required to assemble such a force would involve enormous logistical preparations & political commitments that haven’t occurred, nor can they be done given the present civic, political, social & economic woes & turmoil in America:
& even if such preparations were attempted, they would encounter strong resistance (armed & otherwise) within Western societies that have grown skeptical of prolonged foreign wars & where large chunks of the citizenry have simply zero appetite for them!
As a result, the conflict remains confined primarily to the maritime & aerial domains, where the structural dynamics described aforesaid in prior segments… continue to shape the strategic balance, & towards the advantage of Iran & the Axis of Resistance.
The limits imposed by the aforesaid structural realities become even clearer when the scale of today’s deployments is compared to past conflicts in West Asia, namely the First & Second Gulf Wars against Saddam’s Iraq (in 1991 & 2003, respectively):
During the coalition campaign against Iraq in the early 1990s, an enormous concentration of air & naval power was assembled over many months before hostilities began… whereby the First Gulf War coalition fielded some ~2,400 airframes:
Hundreds of aircraft, large carrier groups, massive logistical stockpiles, & a vast multinational ground force were mobilized in preparation for the Gulf War, which saw the US-led coalition field well over 950,000 troops from over three dozen nations:
& yet even with those overwhelming resources, the aforesaid coalition still devoted months to shaping the battlefield before launching its major offensive operations against an Iraqi army weakened by a near decade long war against neighbouring Iran…
The scale of forces currently deployed is far smaller than that of the aforementioned historical benchmark, despite Iran being roughly 4x larger in surface area, over ~5x more populous than Iraq in 1991, & far more defensible than Saddam’s Iraq ever was!
Attempting to coerce a much larger state with a significantly smaller concentration of force (namely, some 40,000 ground troops max), thus, introduces immediate strategic constraints that cannot easily be pursued (if at all!) through alleged ‘High Tech’ alone.
Iran’s terrain compounds these constraints, as large portions of the country are dominated by rugged mountain systems that heavily favour defensive operations & are nightmarish for all invading armies dependent on modern logistical frameworks!
In such brutish environments, defending units can exploit concealment, elevation, & interior lines of movement to impose disproportionate losses on any invading force, especially when utilizing Modern Landmines, Artillery, Rockets, Drones & SRBMs…
History repeatedly demonstrates that the aforesaid mountainous terrain neutralizes many advantages enjoyed by allegedly ‘technologically advanced’ expeditionary armies… armies that (as Clausewitz noted long ago) find in mountains a stark ‘retarding variable.’
For that reason alone, the prospect of external forces conducting sustained ground operations inside Iran is impossible, especially for anything beyond small skirmishes using special forces… who wouldn’t be exempt from the aforesaid penalties…
Thus, the conflict continues to revolve around socioeconomic disruption, missile exchanges, & the gradual erosion of military infrastructure rather than decisive territorial battles, given the aggressor’s inability to participate in such large pursuits.
Iran’s strategic objective doesn’t require the conquest of territory or the defeat of Western forces in conventional field engagements, though it may be capable of both given its modern armed forces & the paltry, skeleton contingent of its foes presently…
Instead, it requires imposing sufficient economic disruption & military attrition to alter the political calculations of its adversaries, such that they become incapable of continuing the war without enormous socioeconomic & geopolitical consequences…
For if the cost of continuing the war rises faster than the perceived benefits, political pressure will inevitably build within coalition states to seek an exit from the conflict, especially amongst the sundry Asian & European vassals & satrapies of the US Empire.
Such dynamics have shaped the outcome of numerous conflicts in which the stronger power initially assumed that alleged ‘technological superiority’ would guarantee rapid success... only to be ground down by the aforesaid limiting variables in due Time!
Yet another important factor shaping the broader strategic environment is the plight of Israel, which has already been engaged in sustained warfare since the events of the October 7 attacks, & has since been attrited on various fronts these past few years…
Since that moment over 2 years ago, Israel has operated under continuous military mobilization that has placed significant pressure on its economy, its political institutions, & its social cohesion, with its civic institutions buckling under pressure…
Large portions of the population have been drawn into extended military service, while economic activity has been repeatedly disrupted by the demands of ongoing conflict… whereby several firms, businesses, etc have outright gone bankrupt or left:
Over Time, such pressures accumulate, gradually eroding the endurance any society requires to sustain long wars… even One reliant on a wealthy overseas patron (i.e. the USA), albeit said patron is ‘headed for the exits’ given sundry compounding shocks…
For even militarized states eventually confront limits on how long they can maintain large-scale mobilization without experiencing internal fatigue, & this is especially true for the Israelis, who stop functioning without American munitions & financing!
Entering a wider regional war while already under significant strain, thus, presents serious strategic risks for Israel, for aforesaid limits are now beginning to appear across most of civic society… a civic society that has been ‘on the ropes’ for a while…
The additional pressure from missile attacks, economic disruption, & prolonged mobilization will inevitably intensify existing political divisions within society, leading to civic unrest & conflict nationwide, which, in turn, would yield a Civil War.
In such circumstances, the question becomes not merely whether military forces can continue fighting, but whether the broader society can sustain the economic & social burdens of extended conflict, & for Israel, the answer is a ‘No’ sans the US presence…
Strategic endurance ultimately depends on the interaction between military operations & the political stability of the society supporting them, as we find across failed societies… Rhodesia’s defeat in the two-decade-long Bush War comes to mind…
For if those pressures accumulate faster than they can be absorbed, the ability of even allegedly ‘technologically advanced’ states to sustain prolonged conflict may begin to weaken, as we saw with Rhodesia vs. its sundry more ‘primitive’ African militia foes…
The ultimate consequence of the Third Gulf War, then… lies not merely in regional military outcomes but in the destruction of the financial architecture that has sustained US global power for half a century, post-its ascent after the World Wars…
That architecture is the petrodollar system, the arrangement through which global oil trade is priced in U.S. dollars & the resulting revenues flow back into American financial markets… for if Israel, the ‘greatest’ ally, is stranded, no American ally is safe!
For decades, the Petrodollar system guaranteed continuous international demand for dollars because any state wishing to purchase oil first needed access to USD reserves… & it was built on the de facto assumption of US military pre-eminence in West Asia!
Oil exporters then recycled said revenues into U.S. Treasuries, equities, & financial institutions, thereby reinforcing the economic foundations of American geopolitical dominance… which once again was held aloft by the myth of US military ‘invincibility.’
The destruction of this system began the moment Iran asserted uncontested leverage over the Strait of Hormuz days prior, through which a large portion of the world’s energy must pass… yet presently can’t, given Iran’s decisive actions to shut it down!
Control of this thin maritime corridor effectively places Iran as the de facto toll-booth operator over One of the most important arteries in the global economy… Iran alone presently determines who in Asia & the Pacific gets said outflows & who doesn’t.
The strategic implication is immediate & unmistakable because the United States has long justified its global naval presence by claiming it alone guarantees free energy flows across the oceans, yet that is now being directly challenged & outright bested!
When Iran demonstrates that American fleets cannot reopen the strait despite sustained military effort, the credibility of that promise collapses in full view of the world, as we are seeing presently with Trump’s boorish threats… being irrelevant:
Energy importers & exporters alike then recognize that access to Gulf oil now depends on playing nice with Iran rather than on reliance on US protection, for said protection hasn’t arrived & won’t at all, given the navy’s attrited, basket-case state…
In that interval of weeks & months (which we are now at the beginning of!), the petrodollar loses the strategic security guarantee that sustained it for decades… for it is here that the ‘Emperor’ has neither clothes, nor big sticks to whack around its foes…
The consequences extend far beyond currency markets because American power has always depended on an aura of overwhelming military invincibility… & after the aforesaid interval is past, no such aura will remain for both US adversaries & vassals…
For generations, Washington cultivated the belief that even a limited US force could quickly & decisively defeat any regional foe… yet that dies the moment the US signs a peace treaty with terms favouring Iran… forever shattering said myth of US ‘Power.’
This perception of effortless superiority discouraged rivals from testing American power directly because the expected outcome appeared predetermined, & One that couldn’t be challenged given the ‘useless’ Nature of directly confronting the US…
Once that aura dissolves through a strategic defeat against Iran, the deterrent effect it created for decades disappears instantly… & a boon is generated, Game Theoretically, for all of America’s adversaries to then pounce from all directions simultaneously…
The international system then enters the opposite condition of the Reaganite maxim of ‘peace through strength,’ a condition best described via the converse maxim of ‘war through weakness,’ whereby Global War & Conflict become ubiquitous in mere months.
Rival states observing the collapse of American credibility immediately reassess the risks of challenging U.S. forces in their own regions… & this, in turn, goads sundry smaller players (states, sub-state actors, terrorists, warlords, cartels, etc.) to pounce as well!
Governments in China, Russia, North Korea, & Pakistan recognize that the deterrent shield protecting US positions has vanished… & at that point they will make their moves, which in turn cascade & compound, impacting the aforesaid smaller players…
Hence, once the perception of invincibility disappears, the incentives for simultaneous challenges across multiple theatres increase dramatically, whereby simultaneity of said Compound Shocks (War, Economic Crisis, etc) cripple the US…
Strategic pressure then emerges from every direction as rivals test the limits of American commitments in Europe, East Asia, & the Middle East… with the latter’s abandonment & fall at the hands of Iran goading foes to collective, punitive action…
The collapse of deterrence, therefore, transforms a single regional war into a global crisis of American power… whereby said weakness merely doesn’t end with the end of the Empire, but likewise the dismemberment of the American nation & its peoples…
History offers a striking analogy in the ancient Greek world, where Sparta long maintained dominance through a reputation for unbeatable military discipline… even though, as a puny city-state, it never had the mass or volume for outright ‘Total War.’
Once Spartan forces suffered a decisive defeat in battle, their reputation was shattered, & rival city-states rapidly moved to challenge their authority… effectively ending not merely its hegemony, but also dismembering what remained of the polity…
The destruction of an aura of invincibility, hence, produces cascading strategic consequences far beyond the original battlefield… consequences that we are presently living through as America’s inevitable retreat from the Middle East draws ever closer…
In the modern international system, the collapse of American credibility unleashes similar pressures as allies abandon dependence on Washington while rivals seize opportunities to expand their influence… we are but in the early days of said collapse…
Iran’s destruction of the petrodollar, thus, marks the moment when the financial, naval, & psychological pillars of the US world order break apart simultaneously… & multiple wars commencing with foes carving up their sundry spheres of influence…
For what we are witnessing isn’t a move towards a Multipolar World Order, but rather the beginning of a New Dark Age, whereby perpetual warfare, conflict & adversity are the norm, not the exception… in a Darwinian & Hobbesian contest of ‘all against all’…
The DOOM… Hath Arrived!
 | A guest post by
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This is, 100% guaranteed.
USA and in fact most Western Nations are already second world countries and are just yet to learn it through experience.
Soon as well, 12-24 months it will be accepted this has occured.
"For what we are witnessing isn’t a move towards a Multipolar World Order, but rather the beginning of a New Dark Age, whereby perpetual warfare, conflict & adversity are the norm, not the exception… in a Darwinian & Hobbesian contest of ‘all against all’…"
That sad vision of the world... will eventually arrive. For now, we have a few years of relative peace, and yes, I'm writing this from the comfort of my home. These outbreaks of violence are indeed localized. Don't worry, we still have time.