The fuel crunch that we are currently living through, courtesy of the US-Israel war in Iran, has forced us to suddenly change the way we live and work over the past week, as the impact of another armed conflict, this time in the Middle East where disruptions to a significant percentage of the world’s fossil fuel supply has started to be felt all over the planet.
This is not what US President Donald Trump probably thought would happen when he allowed himself to be manipulated by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and gave the order for his country’s military to start another war by joining in a bombing campaign on Iran. Trump probably thought that a few hundred bombs would be enough to collapse and overthrow the Iranian government, and a new one that is sympathetic, grateful, and willing to do business with his great American one would magically sprout from the bombed-out rubble.
Just like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who thought that Ukraine would collapse in four days if he sent his troops in against a country that was much weaker militarily, Trump’s America is now facing the prospect of an enemy that it turns out, would not surrender easily, and is willing to wage an entirely different kind of war than the one the overconfident aggressors both wrongly assumed that their respective ‘special military operation’ would secure a quick victory.
The problem for the rest of the world, whose economies are significantly affected by the war by now, Iran’s defense strategy against the attacks from the US-Israel alliance goes beyond its military. By shutting down the Middle East, Iran is engaged in an economic war of attrition where refusing to surrender, choking the strait of Hormuz, attacking oil production facilities, and lashing out at neighboring countries that host US bases is its way of making this war as painful as possible for the region and even the entire planet.
Iran probably calculates that if Trump’s MAGA base, and even America’s begrudging or bullied allies, feel the pain of skyrocketing fuel prices long enough, the pressure to stop this war that he allowed himself to be pulled into would grow and hopefully become unbearable, and that could force him to either retreat or declare some sort of ‘victory’ that would conveniently mean the end of hostilities.
The point is that this war in the Middle East is looking like it is not going to be the quick and efficient one that Trump thought he ordered, ala his favorite fast food. And even if the hostilities cease tomorrow, there is still the issue of the oil infrastructure and logistics that have been significantly disrupted and cannot be turned back on like a light switch or even a delivery rider that has been delayed. It will take weeks, if not months, for the supply disruption to be fixed, and unfortunately for those of us who are affected, that is the minimum timeline we have to look at.
To newest war of the so-called ‘Peace President’ turned warmonger because he wasn’t given a Nobel Peace Prize is going to be painful because he and his merry band of sycophants didn’t really know what they were getting into, and worse, might not even know how to get out of their latest blunder. Unfortunately for the rest of us, there is no undo button, and because they can’t CTRL+Z their way out, the whole world is going to have to pay the overpriced price of their incompetence and hubris.
Poor countries like the Philippines that are heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil are going to have to prepare for a painful next couple of weeks at the very least, with the repercussions likely to affect what’s left of 2026 and maybe even beyond. Well, at least the rest of the world knows just how great America is again.
This crisis should force Filipinos and their government to take a long, hard look at the way we do things and at our dependence on foreign oil. With wars becoming more commonplace, our country has to find ways to be less dependent on other nations for critical resources, not just the oil of the Middle East. If we do not have the resource, or are unable to find and extract it, then our stockpiles have to be made big enough to withstand similar shocks and disruptions.
Another weakness this crisis has exposed yet again is our public transport system. If we had a more robust and efficient one, the fuel crunch wouldn’t hurt as badly, as people could still get to work and school with minimal disruptions. Instead, what we have are ‘modernized’ jeepneys that are still wholly dependent on fossil fuels that the drivers and operators pay for. If the modernization was more forward-looking and comprehensive, through a total overhaul that included electrifying the system when we had the chance, maybe this wouldn’t be such a big crisis for the Filipino public to bear.
That’s what we get when our leader’s priorities are on dole outs and ghost projects instead. We end up crying even more when there is a crisis.*
