The United States and Israel’s escalating military attacks on Iran speak to nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and regional security. But recent developments suggest another, older logic at work. The deeper objective is not to weaken Iran or force regime change. It is protecting the mobility of oil, the lifeblood of the global capitalist economy.
Consider the recent US strike on Iran’s Kharg Island, the country’s main oil export terminal. The island is located on the shores of the Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes every day. Any disruption will reverberate immediately across global energy markets. Recent reports highlight how sensitive oil prices are to the threat of a bottleneck in the Strait.
Yet the most revealing feature of the Kharg Island strike is that it happened not simply, but was deliberately spared.
US President Donald Trump publicly celebrated the operation, declaring that American forces had destroyed “every military target” on the island. At the same time, he emphasized that the oil infrastructure was left untouched. Writing on Truth Social, Trump said he was determined not to “wipe out the oil infrastructure on the island,” warning that such restraint could change if Iran threatens shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
This difference is revealing. Kharg Island handles the majority of Iran’s crude exports. Destroying its oil terminals could dramatically disrupt global supply and send prices skyrocketing. Instead, Washington opted for a calibrated strike: military damage without power paralysis.
Its meaning is hard to ignore. The US is willing to weaken Iran militarily, but it is deeply invested in maintaining the flow of oil that sustains the global economy.
Energy security has long shaped US strategy in the Gulf. Since the 1980 Carter Doctrine — which declared the region’s oil supply a key American interest — Washington has considered Gulf energy infrastructure a strategic priority. The possibility of Iran blocking shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most destabilizing risks to the global economy.
In this light, the Kharg Island strike looks more like a step towards total war than a signal. Iran’s military capability can be targeted, but the oil infrastructure that underpins the global economy remains a protected asset.
Taken in isolation, the Kharg strike can be read as escalation management. But placed alongside Washington’s behavior in multiple theaters, a more consistent logic comes into view.
This logic becomes clear when placed alongside other recent moves by the Trump administration. In Venezuela, for example, Washington has intensified its confrontation with President Nicolas Maduro. While US officials have framed their pressure campaign around issues of democracy and corruption, Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Control over Venezuela’s political future is inseparable from control over how and where its oil is produced and sold.
If a more pro-US government emerges in Caracas, Venezuela’s oil industry could reorient toward Western markets and investment. In that sense, the conflict is not merely ideological but deeply material. Indeed, analysts point out that Washington has long sought to reshape Venezuela’s oil sector in a way that aligns more closely with US economic interests.
The same logic can be seen in Washington’s shifting stance toward Russian oil. Even as the U.S. continues to frame Moscow as a strategic adversary, U.S. policymakers have recently eased some restrictions affecting Russian crude exports to stabilize global energy markets and prevent price rises. A confrontation with a strategic adversary is also recalibrated when oil flows are threatened. This move underscores a broader reality: geopolitical rivalries often give way to an overlapping imperative to keep power flows steady. Whether the source is Russia, Venezuela or the Persian Gulf, the priority is the same – keeping oil flowing and the global economy running.
The model extends beyond oil.
The same imperative is now extending beyond oil to the critical minerals that underpin future energy and technological systems. Trump has repeatedly revived the idea of annexing Greenland — believed to hold vast reserves of rare earth minerals and potentially significant energy resources beneath its Arctic seabed. These resources are increasingly valuable in a world defined by technological competition and energy transition.
Likewise, Washington has aggressively pushed for access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which are essential for advanced electronics, renewable energy technologies and military systems. These minerals have become a central strategic concern for major powers seeking to secure supply chains for critical industries.
In these circumstances, a steady effort emerges to gain control over the resources and infrastructure that sustain the global economy. Taken together, these moves indicate a consistent geopolitical strategy. Trump’s foreign policy appears to be increasingly shaped by so-called extractive imperialism – an attempt to secure control over the resources that power global capitalism.
Oil is central to this system. Despite decades of debate about renewable energy transitions, hydrocarbons still dominate the world’s energy supply. Global trade, transportation and industry are deeply dependent on a steady flow of crude oil and natural gas.
The infrastructure that enables oil mobility – pipelines, export terminals, shipping lines and refineries – is one of the most strategically protected elements of the global economy.
The Kharg Island strike illustrates this dynamic with unusual clarity. Military assets were fair game; There was no oil infrastructure. Violence was carefully calibrated so as not to disrupt the transmission of energy upon which the global economy depended.
A war with Iran is often framed as a struggle over nuclear weapons or regional influence. Those concerns are certainly important. But beneath them lies a more fundamental geopolitical objective: preserving the energy arteries that sustain the global economic order.
What is at stake is not just conflict between states, but the maintenance of a global system that cannot tolerate disruptions to its own energy lifelines.
Oil has long shaped the geopolitics of the Middle East. The Kharg Island episode shows that it still does. Beneath the rhetoric of deterrence and security is a familiar imperial imperative: keep the oil moving.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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