5. The GCC is Finished
Of the five GCC countries, we will not discuss Saudi Arabia, but the other 4 – Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar and the UAE. Saudi Arabia’s production capacity has suffered measurable damage. It is exporting some 5 million bpd through its East-West pipeline. Qatar has lost close to one-fifth of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) output, a gap that will not be quickly repaired. Across the region, an estimated 2.4 million bpd of refining capacity is offline. Around 10 percent of global crude production remains disrupted, a deficit that cannot be offset while Hormuz stays closed. Even under favorable conditions, a ceasefire and reopening of the strait would not bring immediate normalization. Markets would require at least six months to stabilize. Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah refineries have sustained repeated strikes but remain operational. Before the war, both were significant suppliers of jet fuel to Europe and refined products to Asia. Disruptions to these flows have intensified supply concerns across both regions. Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, has been among the hardest hit due to its lack of alternative export routes. The effective closure of the strait forced the country to halt more than three-quarters of its production, reducing output from 4.3 million bpd to around 800,000. Attacks on infrastructure have compounded the crisis. Iraq’s internal divisions further complicate the picture, with competing actors backed by regional powers. Even if the current conflict subsides, the country remains exposed to renewed instability. Iran has absorbed multiple strikes targeting fuel depots and energy facilities, including attacks on the South Pars Gas Field. While key export infrastructure at Kharg Island has largely avoided damage, several production units have been taken offline. The more difficult phase may come after hostilities end, when the country must attempt to stabilize both its economy and energy sector.
Oman has faced comparatively limited disruption and may emerge in a more stable position than its neighbors. Operations at Salalah Port have been affected, prompting Maersk to suspend activity, but the scale of damage remains contained. Bahrain presents a different case, having declared force majeure on 9 March following an attack on the Sitra Refinery, effectively shutting operations. Damage is severe, and full recovery could take months. More pressing for Bahrain is with tensions between the Sunni ruling minority and Shia majority raising fears of renewed uprising. Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait suspended US military access to its bases and airspace to attack Iran. Qatar signed a truce with Iran, after its LNG structures were bombed. MBS of Saudi Arabia informed the US that it will not be allowed to use its land to launch attacks on Iran. This infuriated the US. It also delayed the attack plans on Iran, due to re-routing logistics and timing. The US and Israel launched the war against Iran in order to prevent the normalization of Tehran’s relations with the Gulf states. The campaign was intended to push Arab countries closer to Israel and pressure them into abandoning support for Palestine. This has backfired on Israel. Iran won the war. There are consequences for being on the wrong side of the power equation, a reality that the US and its Gulf Arab vassals are learning the hard way. It is a bad time to be a Gulf Arab State. They lost.
Instead, the anti-Iranian cabal was compelled to seek a ceasefire that left Iran in total control of Hormuz, throttling both regional and global economies by blocking the transit of the very energy that they rely upon for their functioning and their military intact, capable and defiant, able to deliver devastating damaging blows to their enemy’s lairs. The 40-day war has underscored the reality that is difficult for many to accept that the military capability of the US to project force into the Middle East has eroded to the point of near impotence , and the promise of the US-Arab security guarantee that has been in place for 7 decades, has failed to prevent Iran from gaining control over Hormuz that the US was supposed to secure, no amount of defense spending can reverse this reality, like the Gulf Arab States and India, who had premised their strategic postures on the premise and promise of American military dominance. Indian officials likewise reside in a never-never land which seeks a return to the pre-conflict status quo. It is too late for this; however, India has habitually been on the wrong side of the equation when it comes to Iran, siding with Israel and the US when it comes to Iran and its strategic partners like China. India, at some point in the future, will have to pay the bill, of being on the wrong side.
The reality of the Gulf Arab states is that Hormuz is effectively closed – and their past assumptions about the US re-opening by the US no longer holds. The reality is that the majority of the regions energy production capacity remains locked in the Persian Gulf, unable to reach markets, production remains locked in. The arrogance of the Gulf Arabs remains manifest. The Gulf Arabs were complicity in this attack on Iran, and yet today, they wish to play the victim card. Iran is not buying it. The bottom line is that the Gulf States have effectively lost whatever strategic position they enjoyed before the war. Simply put, a resumption of the war is not an option the Gulf States can entertain, if for no other reason that they will not survive such a turn of events. Iran has published a list of energy production infrastructure which will be targeted for destruction by Iran be subjected to an attack. If Iran were to follow through on their threats- and past precedent strongly indicates it would do so- then these Gulf Arab states would suffer a long-term crippling of their energy-based economy- which would the death knell for these nations as viable modern nation states. There is no military option, given that Iran holds all the cards. These Gulf states will have no choice but to acknowledge and comply with Iran’s demand to remove the US military presence from the region.
UAE-Israel’s Trojan Horse within the Arab/Muslim World
Within the UAE, Iran has struck several energy facilities. It has also rendered the Al Fujairah terminal located just outside Hormuz unusable, thus cutting off Abu Dhabi’s ability to export 1 million barrels of oil daily. The UAE is the only Gulf producer actively seeking to export crude through the blockade; Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar have largely halted or deeply discounted sales, while Saudi Arabia reroutes through the Red Sea. While conventional wisdom, especially after Trump’s counter-blockade of Iran’s blockade, holds that the Strait of Hormuz is completely blocked, the reality is that the UAE is now running loaded crude tankers through the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz with transponders switched off. Emirati state-owned energy giant ADNOC and willing Asian buyers have moved at least 6 million barrels of Upper Zakum and Das crude out of the Gulf in April alone via four tankers. While that’s a drop in the bucket compared to pre-war exports, it proves participants are willing to roll the dice with Iranian drones and speedboats to unlock trapped supply. Iran is not ignoring these runs. the UAE accused Iran of using drones to strike an empty ADNOC tanker, the Barakah, transiting the strait. Two drones hit the vessel; no injuries were reported. The message was clear regardless. ADNOC intends to keep it up. The company notified customers in late April that Das and Upper Zakum cargoes could load in May via STS transfers at Fujairah and Oman’s Sohar. As of writing, Iran has threatened to attack any tanker that loads oil at any UAE port. It has also blocked any imports from reaching Dubai.
Israel & Abu Dhabi
The recent conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran has stripped away many illusions about the Middle East’s true alignments. When Iranian missiles and drones began raining down on Emirati territory in early 2026, Al Dhafra Air Base, Fujairah oil terminals, Jebel Ali port, and Dubai International Airport, the carefully cultivated fiction of UAE neutrality collapsed in flames. By April 2026, Emirati air defenses had 537 ballistic missiles, 26 cruise missiles, and 2,256 drones in the largest Iranian attack campaign ever directed at the Gulf state. The war did not create the UAE’s alignment with Israel. It merely exposed what had been building in secret for three decades. Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a circulated-on Telegram in the early days of the conflict, put the Iranian view of the UAE with brutal clarity: “The UAE means Israel,” he wrote. This accusation did not emerge from nowhere. It was the culmination of a covert relationship that began in Washington hotel rooms in the mid-1990s and metastasized through intelligence sharing, surveillance technology transfers, military coordination, and billions of dollars in trade, all while the Emirates maintained a public posture of Arab solidarity and distance from the Zionist state. To understand why Iran targeted the UAE with such ferocity, one must first understand the depth of the American military presence that Abu Dhabi hosts. The primary US military facility in the UAE is located about 30kms south of Abu Dhabi. This jointly operated base with the UAE Air Force hosts the US Air Force’s It supports intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, aerial refueling, and combat operations with aircraft including F-15s, F-22s, F-35s, U-2 spy planes, and KC-10 tankers. Around 5,000 US personnel are there, along with US Army units including Patriot missile batteries. Dubai, serves as the largest US Navy port of call in the Middle East. While not a formal military base, it regularly hosts aircraft carriers and naval vessels for logistics and resupply operations. No other major permanent US bases exist in the UAE, with American military presence concentrated on these two sites for regional operations. This infrastructure made the UAE an indispensable node in American power projection across the Persian Gulf. It also made Abu Dhabi a target the moment war with Iran erupted. When the UAE federated in 1971, it inherited and codified the Arab League’s economic war on Israel. formalized the country’s participation in the primary, secondary, and tertiary tiers of the Arab boycott. That law remained on the books for nearly five decades, until its repeal on August 29, 2020.Through the 1970s and 1980s the UAE had no diplomatic ties, no travel links, and no open trade with Israel. The founding ruler Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan remained publicly hostile to Israel until his death in 2004. The think-tank he funded, the platforming speakers and publishing materials blaming the September 11 attacks on “the CIA or Mossad,” reflecting how toxic Israel remained in Emirati public rhetoric even while private channels were quietly opening. Yet beneath this surface of Arab solidarity, something else was stirring.
The Birth of the Secret Relationship
The best-documented origin story of clandestine UAE-Israel ties traces to a series of Washington D.C. meetings just after the Oslo Accords. Mohammed bin Zayed, then chief of staff of the UAE Armed Forces, wanted to buy American F-16 fighter jets but needed to neutralize Israel’s veto power inside Sandra Charles, a former George H.W. Bush administration official working as a consultant for Gulf countries, arranged a meeting between Emirati academic Jamal Al-Suwaidi and Israeli diplomat Jeremy Issacharoff. After that contact, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin dropped Israeli objections to the F-16 sale. The Abu Dhabi government-backed Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research And from the very beginning, the destruction of Iran, not the Palestinian question, was the organizing logic. Since then, the depth of covert ties for 20 years, were anchored in arms and intelligence-IT deals worth billions of dollars. What followed over the next two decades was the construction of an entire secret architecture of collaboration. This period was one of “unofficial normalization,” a state-driven and goal-oriented co-engagement that laid the groundwork for the eventual Abraham Accords. In 2009, Israel unexpectedly supported the UAE over Germany as the host for the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City — with the explicit condition that Israel would be permitted to send diplomats and ministers to the UAE under cover of IRENA membership. Israeli ministers and diplomats subsequently to Abu Dhabi through this channel for years while both governments maintained there was no formal relationship. Perhaps no dimension of the secret relationship is darker than the surveillance technology transfers that bound Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv. The Abu Dhabi-based firm with close government ties under MBZ, was accused of running Project Raven, recruiting former NSA and Israeli personnel with $1 million salaries and luxury homes in Cyprus, and building the surveillance app. The Abraham Accords Peace Agreement was signed on the White House South Lawn on September 15, 2020. Mossad director shuttled to the UAE on numerous secretive journeys and played a key role in brokering the agreement alongside the Trump administration’s back-channel diplomacy. Israel agreed NOT to West Bank annexation in exchange — the word used in the joint statement itself. This was repealed on August 29, 2020. Economic intercourse between the two countries exploded immediately. Bilateral trade increased even as the Gaza war raged. A bilateral free-trade agreement entered force “in record time” with investments across healthcare, fintech, energy, agritech, and security. The military cooperation deepened in parallel. In January 2021 the UAE and U.S. signed Letters of Agreement for F-35 Joint Strike Fighters as part of a $23.37 billion arms package. Joint naval drills in the Red Sea along with reported joint listening posts on the Yemeni islands of Perim and Socotra.
The War That Revealed Everything
MBZ has been personally accused across multiple categories of evidence of authorizing and directing a secret partnership with Israel that predated any public acknowledgment. Al Dhafra Air Base, with its 5,000 American personnel, its F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning IIs, its U-2 spy planes and Patriot missile batteries, was used throughout the subsequent 2026 campaign and repeatedly struck by Iran’s IRGC. The base that had quietly enabled American power projection for decades now became a direct target of Iranian retaliation. Iranian intelligence sources accused the UAE of playing an active role in the U.S.-Israeli campaign from its inception, alleging Abu Dhabi was the launch point for the U.S. attack on Kharg Island on March 13, 2026. After initial Iranian hits on Emirati infrastructure, including strikes on Al Dhafra, Jebel Ali port, and Dubai International Airport, MBZ broke with Emirati tradition and publicly declared Iran “the enemy,” his first remarks since the war restarted. The UAE had carried out previously undisclosed military operations against Iran at the start of last month. Emirati strikes targeted an oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in early April-after the ceasefire. During the spring of 2026, the pretense of Arab solidarity lay in ruin alongside the ruined hangars of Al Dhafra, finally revealing the UAE for what it had been for three decades: a subservient client state acting as a frontline enforcer for the Judeo-American axis. The war served as a brutal, clarifying fire, burning away the veneer of sovereignty to expose a regime that has traded its ancestral honor for the role of a permanent collaborator in the global endeavor to make the Middle East safe for Jewish supremacy.
The head of Israel’s David Barnea, visited the at least twice during the war with Iranian March and April to coordinate over the conflict. Shin Bet chief David Zini had also visited the UAE in recent weeks amid the ceasefire and continuing tensions with Iran. Netanyahu – on March 26-made a secret visit to the Abu Dhabi at the height of the US-Israeli war on Iran. MBZ picked Bibi from the airport and personally drove him to the palace, where they had several hours of talks behind closed doors – plotting and planning. The visit coincides with the UAE receiving Iron Dome air defense batteries from Israel. Bibi met with MBZ, with his office describing this as a historical breakthrough. This revelation by Netanyahu’s office showed the sheer contempt that these Zionists show to MBZ, despite all the help he is providing. This revelation is like poison to MBZ. Many knew and suspected Abu Dhabi’s ties to Israel but to have it confirmed in public in such a brutal and humiliating way must have given MBZ and his brothers several cardiac events.
Israel had sent an Iron Dome air defense battery along with military personnel to the UAE early in the conflict with Iran. Israel said it was the first time Israel had deployed the Iron Dome system to another country, and the first time it had been used outside Israel and the United States. Despite the political sensitivity surrounding the presence of Israeli troops in a Gulf state. The UAE tried but failed to persuade neighboring states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to take part in a coordinated military attack on Iran. However, his fellow Gulf leaders told him it was “not their war,” according to the report. When Saudi Crown Prince MBS refused to go along with the scheme, already shaky ties between the UAE and Saudi Arabia were further strained. The Saudi refusal also contributed to the Emirates’ decision to leave OPEC and OPEC+, the oil-producing cartel, and deepen its existing ties to Israel. The UAE ultimately carried out several strikes against Iran without support from other Gulf states in early March and in April. Iran targeted US bases and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia with drones in the first days of the war. Yet the kingdom focused its efforts on promoting Pakistani-mediated negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Qatar considered joining the UAE in an attack after Iranian missile strikes hit Doha’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, causing extensive damage and major fires, a Gulf official said. However, Doha also ultimately chose to de-escalate and throw its support behind negotiations. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman joined Saudi Arabia and Qatar in rejecting the UAE plan. Washington pushed Saudi Arabia and Qatar to join a coordinated military response, and both declined.
The UAE has sent $100 million to US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to fund the training of a new Palestinian police force for Gaza. Setting up a security force to control Gaza on Israel’s behalf will reportedly allow Tel Aviv to sideline Hamas while reducing the presence of the Israeli army, which is suffering from manpower shortages. MBZ is paying the Zionist regime to oppress and genocide fellow Muslims and Arabs. How low can any person stoop to? All this to satisfy his envy and hatred for the Saudis. The West has used this weakness to turn into an “attack dog” for both Israel and the US. Israel is America’s “attack dog” for the region, while Abu Dhabi is Israel’s “attack dog” in the region. Both London and New York are using the envy and greed of MBZ to destroy viable Muslim states (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Syria) as well as weakening the Islamic faith from within, by coming out with a “modern “Islam. IRGC has sent a chilling warning to the UAE: “stop bootlicking the US, otherwise, we will attack the UAE with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones. When the US leaves, it will be just you and me”. The UAE will cease to exist as a nation.
Abu Dhabi Exits OPEC
On 28 April, the UAE its formal withdrawal from OPEC and the OPEC+ alliance, with the decision set to take effect on 1 May. This marks a significant shift within the energy bloc. Economic pressures and political tensions both appear to have shaped the move. MBZ did not take this decision alone. It should be viewed as a new phase in plans by Washington and Tel Aviv to create a rupture in the Gulf and weaken OPEC’s cartel status. The withdrawal ends Abu Dhabi’s role in an organization it joined in 1967 – four years before the UAE’s formation – within a framework established in 1960 to coordinate oil policies among leading producers and stabilize global markets. MBZ followed instructions from New York. Although David Rockefeller was responsible for the creation of OPEC in 1960, it seems that OPEC has outlived its usefulness to the family. The UAE just made that first move. A break-up of OPEC would leave many of the smaller producers at the mercy of Wall Street- and over a period of time and constant pressure, New York aims to break-up OPEC with the aim of being the dominant controller of oil flows and pricing. In short, UAE will play the role of “spoiler” for the Rockefeller Empire against Saudi Arabia and Russia and OPEC. The UAE’s exit reflects a broader repositioning in the global oil market, shaped by its substantial reserves and production capacity. With roughly it ranks sixth globally, giving it significant leverage in supply calculations. It is also OPEC’s third-largest producer, around 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd) before the recent escalation, accounting for about four percent of global output. That figure dropped to roughly 1.9 million bpd in March, underscoring the volatility driven by supply disruptions. This fluctuation is closely tied to the UAEs through the Strait of Hormuz. In 2025, the country exported about 2.02 million bpd of crude and 1.22 million bpd of petroleum products, bringing through the strait to approximately 3.24 million bpd. As tensions intensified, crude exports fell to around 1.6 million bpd. It is now standing at close to zero!
The conflict has also exposed vulnerabilities within the UAE’s own energy infrastructure. The Ruwais Refinery, with a capacity of 922,000 bpd, was among the earliest targets. Gas processing operations at Habshan were suspended multiple times, while explosions at offshore fields halted production. Fujairah Port has allowed exports to continue outside Hormuz, but repeated attacks on storage and transport facilities have forced intermittent shutdowns. The extent of disruption would have been far greater without this alternative route. At the same time, the export structure itself came under strain. in Fujairah triggered partial shutdowns, fires at export terminals, and interruptions to loading operations. The fallout was immediate, disrupting flows through one of the region’s most critical energy hubs. These shocks have reverberated across the broader economy. Investor flight wiped out an estimated $120 billion in value, while the tourism sector – responsible for roughly $70 billion annually and about 12 percent of GDP – took a direct hit. All these Gulf statelets created by the British, will revert back to its original owners. The UAE will go back to Oman. Kuwait will return to Iraq, while Bahrein will return to Iran. Qatar will be taken over by Saudi Arabia. And, eventually, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Palestine/Israel will return to Syria. Finally, this war has thrown both the Abrahamic Accords and the IMEC transportation corridor into the dustbin. Neither China, Russia, Saudi or Iran would allow this corridor to rival the INSTC corridor. Once again, the East has won this particular fight.
6. From the Petro-Dollar to the US Dollar
The Petro-dollar was born in 1975, on the back of a security deal between Saudi Arabia and the Rockefeller Empire. Basically, the 2 families- Rockefeller and the Al Saud families got together and made a new deal that would alter global geopolitics for the next 5 decades. Economic and financial warfare, plus sanctions, theft of foreign reserves, etc. have all combined to push the three nations – Russia, China and Iran- to escape the dollar-centric role of the Rockefeller Empire. It has now reached a stage where these three, along with Saudi Arabia are now conducting transactions bypassing the dollar. That is one of the key reasons for the combo’s attack on Iran. That plan failed. Over time, more global trade will be conducted without the dollar. This will result in the Petro-dollar going back to its role before 1975. The world would have gotten rid of its greatest oppressor. The dollar will still be powerful due to the size of the US economy, but it’s ability to dictate, bully and threaten the world is vanishing fast.
From 1975, American military power was used to support the Petro-dollar. Iran just destroyed this linkage-once and for all. The US was defeated in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq-, but these were POLITICAL DEFEATS. Iran was different. It defeated the US/Israeli combo. The US suffered its first military defeat since 1945, by a 2nd– rated power. Not only that, Iran showed the world it could defeat 2 nuclear powers using conventional means. The war on Iran, Russia and other oil powers will not end until the US is weakened economically, and suffers further military defeats. This means that the world must expect another round of attacks on Iran and its allies in the region. From all indications, the US/Israeli combo has planned a short and very ferocious attack on Iran. Against this, Iran says it has designated targets and is ready to fire the moment the combo launches an attack on Iran. This time, Iran has promised to target all the energy infrastructure and the remaining Western military infrastructure in the region-including within Israel itself. I m not sure if power and desalination plants are on the list.
7. From Abundance to Shortage
Whatever oil tankers managed to leave Hormuz by March 1 have reached their destinations by the end of April. There is no more oil flowing to the West from Hormuz. Those tankers were the last one. The last oil shipment from the Middle East to reach Western shores. It arrived, it unloaded, and now it is gone. The buffer that kept fuel flowing for two months, tankers that were already at sea when the war started, is exhausted. That supply is now zero. Gone. For two months, the world coasted on oil that was already at sea. That floating inventory masked the full scale of what was happening. It kept prices high but stable. It kept fuel flowing. It kept people thinking this was just another spike at the pump. That illusion ended at the end of April. We are no longer in a price crisis. We are entering a physical shortage. A point where fuel stops being available at any price because there is none left to sell. By the week ending May 3, Lloyd’s List reported only 40 ships crossed the strait in the entire seven-day period. That is roughly five or six per day. Pre-war traffic was 120 per day. That is a 95 percent collapse in commercial shipping through the most important oil corridor on Earth. The United States imposed its own naval blockade of Iranian ports on April 13. Iran warned the U.S. to stay out. The strait has been effectively closed for over two months. But oil tankers and container ships are still exiting Hormuz by paying the toll fees to Iran- but these ships are from or going to “friendly nations”. The western media will not inform you of this fact. You are going to hear a phrase in the coming days that most people have never encountered: tank bottoms. Jeff Currie, senior advisor at the Carlyle Group stated that oil storage tanks in Europe will hit tank bottoms “sometime in the month of May” and in the United States “somewhere in that July 4th period.” He said he has “never seen anything like it before.”
Tank bottoms does not mean the tanks are low. It means the system stops working. Oil storage tanks require a minimum volume of liquid to maintain the pressure that allows pumps to function. When levels drop below that threshold, the remaining oil becomes physically inaccessible to the pipeline system. It cannot be pumped out. It cannot be moved. The pumps fail. So, when Currie says “tank bottoms,” he is describing a point where the infrastructure itself fails. The pumps cannot pull. The pipelines cannot deliver. The refineries cannot process. It does not matter what the price is. It does not matter how much money you have. The fuel is physically gone from the system. Europe is hitting that point now. This month. May 2026. The United States hits it around July 4. THE NUMBERS THAT PROVE IT. Globally, the gross depletion rate reaches 10 to 13 million barrels per day. One analysis estimated that over one billion barrels of stored petroleum have been depleted since late February. Even if the war ended today, the shortages are inevitable.
Diesel Runs Out First and Then Everything Stops
Not all fuels are equal in this crisis. Diesel runs out first. And when diesel stops, everything stops. Diesel is not a luxury fuel. Diesel is the blood supply of the economy. Seventy percent of all agricultural and food products are transported by truck. Every truck runs on diesel. Every tractor in every field runs on diesel. Every combine harvester runs on diesel. Every refrigerated trailer keeping food cold on its way to your grocery store runs on diesel. Every freight train pulling grain cars runs on diesel. When diesel becomes scarce, trucks stop moving. When trucks stop moving, food does not get picked up from farms. It does not get delivered to processing plants. It does not get driven to distribution centers. It does not arrive at grocery stores. This is not inflation. Inflation is when prices go up. This is when the shelves go empty because there is nothing to put on them. There is nothing to put on them because there is no fuel to move the food from where it grows to where you live. The Hormuz disruption is raising fears of a global food crisis, particularly if countries begin restricting exports to protect domestic supplies, a pattern seen in every previous food crisis. Fertilizer prices are already surging because nitrogen fertilizer production depends on natural gas, and natural gas supplies through Hormuz have been cut. California nitrogen fertilizer prices have reached $450 to $575 per ton. The oil crisis is turning into “an everything crisis.” Plastic caps, crates, snack bags, and containers are becoming harder to procure. Petroleum derivatives are needed for adhesives in footwear and furniture, industrial lubricants for machinery, solvents for paints and cleaning. Beer, noodles, chips, toys, cosmetics, kidney dialysis supplies, condoms. All of it depends on petroleum. All of it is being disrupted right now. We are not approaching a food crisis. We are entering one. And it will become a famine if this continues through June and July, which the data says it will.
The Aviation Collapse has Already Begun
On May 2, 2026, Spirit Airlines ceased all operations. The announcement came at 3:00 AM Eastern Time. Seventeen thousand workers lost their jobs. Spirit Airlines is not the last carrier that will fall. It is the first. Jet fuel inventories at the European benchmark hub of Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp have fallen 50 percent since the war began in late February. Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy, told Fortune the decline has been “a straight line down, and it will continue to be like that for at least the next few weeks no matter what we do.” European commercial jet fuel inventories will drop below the 23-day shortage threshold sometime in June. The U.K. is identified as the most at risk of jet fuel rationing. Some European countries hold no official jet fuel stock at all. Lufthansa has canceled 20,000 flights through October. AirAsia X has raised fares 31 to 40 percent and cut capacity 10 percent. Air New Zealand has canceled 1,100 flights. Over 13,000 flights scheduled for May alone have been canceled across Europe. Almost two million seats have been removed from carrier schedules worldwide. The crisis extends far beyond what goes in your car or your truck. The Strait of Hormuz carried roughly 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas trade. Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter, has sustained damage at its Ras Laffan processing complex that has knocked out an estimated 17 percent of its capacity. the disruption has stripped 7 to 11 percent of annual global LNG supply from the market. Asia spot LNG prices have surged 140 percent, from $270 per 1000 cubic mts (tcm) before the war to above $600 -$700 per tcm. Liquefied petroleum gas, the fuel that feeds plastics manufacturing, chemical production, heating systems, and agricultural operations, has seen shipments stall as Gulf exports collapse. Naphtha, the petrochemical feedstock that is the raw material for plastics, solvents, and industrial chemicals, is vanishing from Asian markets. Fujairah storage stocks are down 72 percent. Northwest Europe ARA naphtha stocks are down 37 percent. Singapore middle distillate prices have hit record highs above $290 per barrel. Petrochemical plants across Asia are shutting down because they cannot afford or obtain feedstock. These are not consumer fuels. Most people will never hear about naphtha or LPG shortages. But they will feel them. Plastic packaging, medical supplies, fertilizer components, industrial chemicals, heating fuel for homes that use propane. All of it depends on supply chains that are breaking right now.
Not every part of the world faces the same level of risk. Geography determines vulnerability. Asia and the Pacific are being hit first and hardest. South Korea, Japan, and China together account for 75 percent of the oil that normally flows through Hormuz. The Philippines moved to a four-day workweek. Vietnam urged workers to stay home. Europe faces immediate exhaustion of inventories this month. Heavy reliance on Qatari LNG and Saudi crude via Hormuz has led to industrial surcharges of up to 30 percent.
The Price You See is a Lie
There are two prices for oil. The ‘paper’ price is what you see on the news, the futures contracts traded on exchanges. Then there is the ‘physical’ price. This is what actual barrels of oil sell for when real buyers pay real money for real crude to be delivered to real refineries. In a normal market, those two prices track each other closely. Right now, they do not. The gap between them has ranged from $20 to $60 per barrel since the crisis began, depending on the day and the grade of crude. On May 8, Brent crude futures settled around $101.65 per barrel. The IEA reported physical crude spot prices near $150 per barrel in April. When paper catches up to physical, the repricing will be ‘violent. The price you see on the news is the paper price. The price the world is actually paying for oil is far higher. And when those two numbers converge, every price you pay for everything will move with them. Here is the fact that should keep every policymaker awake tonight. If the Strait of Hormuz opened this afternoon, completely and permanently, the first drop of new Persian Gulf gasoline would not reach a retail fuel station pump until approximately late August or September 2026. That is roughly 12 to 16 weeks from now. The math is straightforward. It takes roughly 40 days for a Very Large Crude Carrier to travel from the Persian Gulf to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Once crude arrives at a refinery, it enters a multi-week refining process before it becomes usable fuel. Then the refined gasoline has to be moved from coastal refineries to inland distribution points, which takes another 10 to 14 days by pipeline and truck. Add it all together and you get roughly 12 to 16 weeks from strait to pump. That means the pain is locked in. Regardless of what happens diplomatically. Regardless of what deal is reached. Regardless of what any politician promises. The physical reality of moving oil across oceans, refining it, and distributing it to 150,000 petrol stations cannot be compressed. Physics does not negotiate. And that three month is just the beginning. The full timeline to restored flow is over a year.
But that is only the beginning of the recovery. The barriers go far beyond transit time. Shipping lanes must still be cleared of mines. Ships must be repositioned. Production that was shut in must be restarted, a process that the post-COVID recovery showed can take up to two years, with permanent damage to some reservoirs if wells were not properly mothballed. Over two million barrels per day of Middle East refining capacity is offline or damaged. Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility has lost an estimated 17 percent of its capacity. Industry estimates put the repair timeline at up to five years. Critical equipment like gas turbines has OEM backlogs of two to four years. The total Gulf repair bill is estimated between $25 and $58 billion. Even if peace comes tomorrow, the recovery takes years.
The Forced Shutdown of Demand
When supply disappears, demand must follow. Not because people choose to consume less. Because they are forced to. This is not conservation. This is demand destruction. It means factories closing. Flights canceled. Commutes eliminated. Agricultural operations scaled back. Economies contracting because there is not enough fuel to sustain them. Global refinery runs have been cut by nearly 6 million barrels per day, concentrated in Asia and the Middle East, because refiners cannot obtain crude to process. Nobody knows how this will end because it has never happened before. In every previous oil crisis, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries stepped in to stabilize the market by ramping up production. That is what OPEC exists to do. It cannot do it this time. The producers are trapped behind the blockade. The traditional market stabilizer OPEC is paralyzed. Its biggest producers are locked behind a closed chokepoint. Its third-largest member just walked out the door. There is no OPEC cavalry coming.
The United States is Draining itself to Supply the World
While American storage tanks empty, the United States is exporting petroleum at all-time record levels. Total petroleum exports hit 14.2 million barrels per day in early 2026, a 33 percent increase from 2025. Refined product exports hit a fresh all-time high of 8.2 million barrels per day. Gasoline exports rose 27 percent. Diesel exports rose 23 percent. Jet fuel exports rose 82 percent. Read that again. Jet fuel exports rose 82 percent while Spirit Airlines went bankrupt from fuel costs. The United States is sending its fuel overseas to fill shortfalls in Europe and Asia while its own inventories collapse. U.S. crude imports are at fresh five-year seasonal lows. The country is simultaneously producing record volumes, exporting record volumes, and watching its own reserves drain at record speed. These are not the final numbers. These are the numbers on the way to the final numbers. And the summer driving season has not even started yet.
The Debt Wall
This crisis does not arrive in a vacuum. It arrives on top of a national debt that has reached 100 percent of GDP, a level not seen since World War II. Annual interest payments on this debt have already tripled to $1 trillion since 2021. Now layer an energy crisis on top of that. Tax revenue depends on economic activity. Economic activity depends on transportation. Transportation depends on fuel. When fuel stops, commerce stops. When commerce stops, tax revenue collapses. When tax revenue collapses, the government cannot service its debt or fund emergency response. Rising prices from energy costs. Falling economic output from supply chain collapse. Ballooning debt with no capacity to borrow more. A currency that weakens as the economy contracts. All at the same time. The triple whammy that no one in Washington appears to be planning for, because no one in Washington appears to understand what is happening. Every energy ministry on Earth has access to the same data I am presenting in this article. And there is a darker question. Who benefits from global collapse? Defense contractors benefit from conflict. Energy traders placed $7 billion in bets ahead of major price swings and made hundreds of millions. Oil companies with production outside the disrupted zone benefit from record prices. But at the scale this crisis is reaching, even those actors lose. BlackRock collapses. The banking system collapses. Currency collapses. There is nothing left to profit from. Which means either they did not see the scale of the cascade they set in motion, or there is a calculation we cannot see from the outside. Either answer is terrifying. People will lose their jobs over this. People will lose their savings. People will go hungry. People will die. In the parts of the world that were already on the edge, millions will die.
What I Am Telling You and Why
Some will say I am overstating this. That governments will intervene. That rationing will slow the cascade. That emergency measures will buy time. That the system will adapt. Maybe. Governments may ration fuel. Emergency shipping corridors may be established. Military convoys may move critical supplies. Demand destruction may reduce consumption enough to stretch what remains a few weeks further. None of that changes the physical reality. The cascade from diesel shortage to food shortage is not a probability estimate. It is a mechanical fact. When the fuel stops, the trucks stop. When the trucks stop, the food stops. Emergency measures may soften the impact. They will not prevent it. This is not a probability assessment. This is a warning. And the difference between a warning you act on and a warning you dismiss is measured in whether your family eats in August. You need to prepare now. Not because collapse is guaranteed in every detail. But because the physical shortage is real, the timeline is fixed, and the window to prepare is closing. If emergency measures work and the worst does not come, you will have extra food in your pantry and fuel in your shed. If they do not work and you did nothing, you will have neither. That is not a hard calculation.
What you Must Do Now
This is not a drill. This is not a warning about something that might happen in the distant future. This is happening right now. The countdown is measured in weeks. Days in some places. And hear me on this: stop treating your debt as your priority. Your credit card payment is not your priority. Your mortgage payment is not your priority. Your priority is physical survival. Food. Water. Fuel. Shelter. Community. Every dollar you spend servicing debt to financial institutions is a dollar you do not have for the things that will keep your family alive. In a systemic collapse, the institutions holding your debt will become insolvent. The currency you are using to pay them may become worthless. The enforcement mechanisms that collect on debts require a functioning legal system, and a functioning legal system requires a functioning society. When the diesel runs out and the shelves empty, the society you know stops functioning. Use every available resource to acquire what you need to survive the next months. Redirect what you have toward survival, not toward keeping a credit score alive in a system that is collapsing. You can settle debts in a depreciated currency later, if the creditor still exists to collect them. This is not financial advice. This is triage. And triage means you save the living first.
Conclusion
Modern warfare at its heart is not technological; it is ideological. Victory is won by the nation with the greatest moral-spiritual alignment and unity, not the nation with the most gizmos, gadgets, and fancy “cheap” toys. In fact, if you did a study, you’d likely find there is an inverse correlation between higher technological fetishization of the military-industrial apparatus and an attendant lower moral-spiritual fiber of its people. This process is not an “accident”, but a natural self-evolving feedback loop between a people and their culture’s slow detachment from unifying cultural principles toward the void-filling materialism that naturally sprouts like weeds in a patch of dead lawn. The West is in serious cultural decline, and must increasingly rely on gimmicky ‘techne’ to prop up the diminishing and depleted strength which can no longer move the world by its own sheer cultural inertia and vitality, and must now resort to heavy-handed force using a crude and limited set of technical instruments. There is a new Middle Eastern power paradigm at play today. And it doesn’t include the United States. Iran’s leader, Mojtaba Khamenei expands on the Iranian objectives by stating explicitly: “A new era has begun in the Strait of Hormuz and American hegemony has come to an end”. The world has witnessed the end of an era. An era known as “The American Century”, which has lasted for 81 years (1945-2026). We are now moving towards a new era.
Our next article is called “Hezbollah defeats Israel-Again!” This will be followed by an article titled, “The dawn of a new era” – which is a follow-up to the article you have just read.
Some analysts say BRICS appears to be separate but is part of the same technocratic beast system with digital IDs and CBDCs etc. They all signed up to the environmental, sustainable policies, not forgetting the scamdemic with the safe and effectives. And this latest manufactured energy crisis is another faction in creating havoc globally, displacing and killing people through wars, famine, weather manipulation. Europe seems keen to suicide itself with the green energy policies, too. I read that a lot of damage in Israel by Iran, were in areas of resistance to new developments which has now been defeated as they can blame Iran for the demolitions. I agree that the effects of what’s coming are beyond most folks comprehension. Right now, life is carrying on as normal, although prices are rising.