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Why So High? The Iran War, a Pivotal Strait, and the Bill You're Paying for It

  • Apr 7
  • 5 min read

Pull up to a gas station today and you might do a double take. Oil prices have skyrocketed, and it is not solely due to a supply and demand issue. Rather, it is the culmination of decades of geopolitical influence on oil production and now a full-blown conflict. To comprehend why oil prices continue to climb, one needs to understand a small Strait in the Middle East, a twenty-year trend of external influences on this region, and a U.S. President who finally gave the green light.


The Match That Lit the Fire

February 28th, 2026 saw a coordinated airstrike between Israel and the United States target Iran’s military leadership and military operations in an operation the U.S. called “Operation Epic Fury.”1 These airstrikes were felt immediately through global energy markets. In one trading day, WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude increased 8.6%. International crude prices also experienced significant increases. Specifically, Brent crude, used internationally as the price index for crude, rose nearly 9% to $79.41 per barrel.2 This would be only the start of things. By the end of March, Brent crude had soared approximately 55%, its biggest monthly gain since its establishment in 1988.3 Supporters of the operation cited Iran's advancing nuclear program and its funding of regional proxy forces as justification.


The Strait That Controls the World

Understanding the oil shock is tied to a passage known as the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately one-fifth of all seaborne oil (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Iran) passes through the strait.4  5 When Iran began targeting tankers and regional energy infrastructure in retaliation for the strikes, the effects were staggering. The International Energy Agency assessed that this was the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the global oil market and that supplies flowing into Hormuz collapsed from 20 million barrels a day to nearly nothing.5


Unlike previous oil shocks, this oil crisis is much harder to circumvent. While alternative routing and diversification have been useful in managing the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian energy shock, these strategies are useless when a physical choke point such as the Strait is closed. The oil has no other way out.


We’ve Seen This Before

Benjamin Netanyahu has long considered Iran Israel’s primary threat and has spent decades trying to get the United States to attack Iran. Before that, he was a leading figure pushing the United States to invade Iraq. According to then-Secretary of State John Kerry,6 Netanyahu, as a private citizen at the time, was “profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq.” Israeli intelligence also provided Washington with alarming reports about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction program. In September 2002, Netanyahu testified directly to the U.S. Congress, advising that an invasion of Iraq would be “a good choice.”7 America invaded the following year. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found.


The aftermath was terrible; not only for Iraq but for the entire region. A geyser of extremism erupted across the Middle East, causing a wave of wars, instability, and terrorism. Analysts say plunging into an armed conflict with Iran will likely be even worse than what occurred after the Iraq War.


A Pattern of Pressure

The Iraq War was a warning that was largely ignored. Over the next two decades, the U.S. would apply this very same “playbook” on Iran, but at a much slower pace, with patience and persistence.


Lobby groups such as AIPAC, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and United Against Nuclear Iran worked for years to build opposition to Iran, prevent U.S. companies from doing business there, and derail prior diplomatic attempts to improve relations between Washington and Tehran. When the Obama administration negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, halting Iran’s enrichment program in exchange for lifting sanctions, AIPAC reportedly spent $30 million lobbying against it, supporting Netanyahu’s campaign to kill the agreement.8 When Trump came to power, he tore up the deal in 2018, even though Iran was fully complying.9 The diplomatic off-ramp was gone.


Since the 1990s, Netanyahu repeatedly raised alarms about Iran’s imminent development of nuclear weapons, pressing the United States for permission to take direct military action or imploring Washington to do so on Israel’s behalf. This was coupled with covert Israeli efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

When National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned in the aftermath of the war’s outbreak, he cited Israel’s “powerful lobby” as a cause of the 2026 Iran conflict. That is a striking statement from inside the U.S. government itself.10 


What It Means for You

For Canadians, the impact is showing up everywhere. The average price per liter for an Ontario driver was approximately $1.25 to $1.30 before the Iran War. Since then, prices in Ontario have increased to a wide range of $1.50 to $1.70 a liter, and prices have continued to soar. By early April, the cost of gas exceeded the $2 per liter threshold in some areas of Canada, with the East Coast and West Coast affected the most.11 Between March and April alone, gas prices have averaged a 30% increase throughout Canada. Jet fuel in North America has increased 95% since the beginning of the war, which has further forced airlines such as Air Canada and Porter to raise their rates.12


The parallels to the Iraq War are quite ominous. The total cost of the Iraq War was in the trillions of dollars, destabilized an entire region, and did not produce many of the benefits which were promised.13 Already, the price of the 2026 Iran Conflict exceeds $200 billion and has caused global crude-oil markets to hit record-highs. Remember, this is less than a year into the conflict.


The Bottom Line

What you pay at the pump is about much more than just oil. It is also about who controls the choke points, who gets to set the narrative in Washington, and what happens when foreign lobbying on American policymakers for decades finally tips into warfare. In the early 2000s we saw a very similar thing happen in Iraq. The Weapons of Mass Destruction never existed, Iraq never became stable, and the bill to the United States was huge.





















Works Cited


1. Wikipedia – 2026 Israeli–United States Strikes on Iran — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Israeli%E2%80%93United_States_strikes_on_Iran

2. CNN Business – Oil surges as war in Iran threatens crude supply (March 1, 2026) — https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/01/business/oil-prices-us-attack-iran-vis

3. CNBC – Oil price: Brent heads for record monthly gain on Iran war (March 30, 2026) — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/30/oil-price-today-wti-brent-yemen-houthis-israel-iran-war.html

4. U.S. Energy Information Administration – The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint — https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61002

5. U.S. Energy Information Administration – Strait of Hormuz remains critical oil chokepoint — https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65504

6. The Times of Israel – Kerry accuses Netanyahu of cheerleading 2003 Iraq war — https://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-accuses-netanyahu-of-cheerleading-2003-iraq-war/

10. Al Jazeera – Who is Joe Kent, and why did he resign as Trump’s counterterrorism chief? (March 18, 2026) — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/18/who-is-joe-kent-and-why-did-he-resign-as-trumps-counterterrorism-chief

11. CBC News – Gas prices could rise above $2/litre across Canada as Iran war drags on — https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/gas-prices-canada-two-dollar-litre-war-iran-9.7152548

12. CNBC – Jet fuel supply concerns grow as war with Iran drags on, airlines cut flights (April 7, 2026) — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/07/iran-war-jet-fuel-airlines.html

13. Harvard Kennedy School – The True Cost of the Iraq War: $3 Trillion and Beyond — https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/true-cost-iraq-war-3-trillion-and-beyond

 
 

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