European Neutrality is American Vulnerability in Iran |
The European powers are playing a game of chicken with the US over Russia hegemony in Eastern Europe that may cost Israel its war in Iran
It may seem counterintuitive that the United States- only 7% of whose domestic oil consumption is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz- is attempting to rally the European states- at least a fifth of whose oil consumption is shipped through the strait- to join them in a military coalition to reopen the waterway, and unsuccessfully so. If the US is not willing to stop Israel and the war on Iran, the European powers are willing to turn to Russia for their energy needs, emboldening Russia in its attempt to reestablish hegemony over the East European Plain and itself as a global peer competitor to the US, which Europe is betting is an even more daunting eventuality to Washington than to themselves.
As far as Europe is concerned, Washington is their security. Through the NATO treaties, the US has handled European defense since the Second World War allowing these countries to expend their finances on expansive welfare state programs while the US secures their defense and global interests abroad.
For Washington, Europe is the fundamental cornerstone of their financial breadbasket. European oil imports account for over a fifth of global seaborne crude oil, exported by OPEC countries that only price and sell their oil in USD, forcing these European states to hold USD and recycle these holdings in US Treasury debt, providing the US Treasury with a structural line of credit as it prints and spends at incredible, consistent deficits, debt spending that allows the US to finance a global military and one of the most generous welfare systems in the world.
Europe is now threatening the US that if they do not accede to the Iranian demands for immediate ceasefire, they will begin turning to Russia to meet their petroleum needs. This would be in addition to the EU’s continued reliance on Russia for natural gas, which however reduced from 45% of the bloc’s imports before the Russo-Ukraine War remain a significant 19%.
An EU turn to Russia for oil imports would both threaten the US’ structural line of credit by circumventing the petrodollar system and undermining US dollar hegemony and invigorate the longstanding Russian initiative to reestablish its hegemony over the East European Plain and itself as a peer competitor to US global power.
As dangerous as renewed Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe would be for Europe, these European states are betting that this prospect is even more threatening for the US. Such a scenario would effectively mark the end of US global hegemony which Washington has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War and face the United States with a ruinous sovereign debt crisis.
These developments expose the incredible strategic vulnerabilities of the US in their complicated, multifaceted global system of alliances. All the more so do these interests and vulnerabilities demand Israeli independence from and fortitude against American interference in the war against Iran, lest Israel allow its security to be unnecessarily sacrificed for American global interests which it does not necessarily share.