CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

US Imperialist War in Iran Looks Like an Economic Rescue Mission

U.S. Navy/PhoM1 Brien Aho – Public Domain

The question of why the U.S. government began a war with Iran is unsettled. The ostensible reasons, blocking Iran from developing nuclear weapons and protecting Iranians’ human rights, are not enough. Iran’s agreement not to build a nuclear arms program was in force from 2016 to 2020, when the U.S. rejected it. The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025. Immediately prior to the war, Iran reportedly agreed to “zero stockpiling” of enriched nuclear material.

Additionally, a U.S. government that so easily tolerates human rights abuses within the United States and in certain allied nations would seemingly have little zeal to fight Iran on that account, unless there were other inducements.

Strategic considerations as to U.S. economic sustainability and U.S. economic and political power in the world very likely impelled nervous U.S. decision-makers to start a war. A big issue is the selling and distribution of oil.

Argentinian economist Alejandro Marcó del Pont looks at geographical considerations affecting access to oil. “[T]rue power” he states, “lies in the prerogative to close, to deny, to choke off. And in this equation, keeping the straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb (the narrow passage at the south end of the Red Sea) open constitutes a structural challenge not only for Tehran or Riyadh, but above all for the major economies of East and South Asia.”

“The impact is of an earthquake of varying intensity: an existential vulnerability in Japan and South Korea, a perfect storm over booming India, and a surgical blow to the foundations of China’s growth … [T]he constant thread running through this second Trump administration has been the geopolitical reconfiguration of the global energy sector. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz might not be a strategic “mistake,” but rather a deliberate feature of the conflict….

“And then there is China, the real elephant in the room … For Beijing, the crisis transcends the economic and becomes a strategic vulnerability of the first order, … The argument is that the blockade of the straits is a deliberate move by Washington to choke off China’s energy “lifeline” and, in doing so, halt its geopolitical rise.”

China receives around 90% of Iran’s exported oil; 37.7% of oil produced by the Persian Gulf nations and passing through the Strait of Hormuz goes to China. Marcó de Pont is asserting that the U.S. government started this war to block, or to at least control, the flow of oil and natural gas to nations seen as threats to U.S. interests.

Economist Michael Hudson agrees with Marcó de........

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