The Occam's razor explanation is that it's all about Israel.

They're the only country that actually benefits from all these misguided Middle Eastern adventures, and it's not like it's just one, there's a pattern and it's always the same

I would speculate that it’s more about Israel interests. Iran produces 5% of the global oil but more importantly, it represents 20% of their gov income and the major engine of economic growth in the country. So .. you control their oil, you control the government.. and with it, the major antagonist to us interests in the region. Every other country in the region is aligned with the US or just too poor to be relevant. So it’d be a big win for the global geopolitics board.

Iran has been the instigator or financier of almost all global terrorism that affects US interests for the last 50 years. It's not like that's a secret.

The only reason why the US has been dealing with the effects rather than the cause for so long is best illustrated by the mess we have now.

I guess we can be a little thankful this is bogging down because next on the list is Russia and the little proxy war between the US and China going on in Ukraine.

It’s simple. Oil is traded in USD. A large share of the oil is produced in the Middle East. If oil stopped trading in USD the value of our currency would plummet. So we have a strong interest in all oil exporters.

Absolutely not defending anything the US gov is doing now or for the past years, and in general agreement (Iran is targeted for totally stupid reasons), just to point out:

> With the abundance of onshore oil through fracking revolution

Fracking isn't free of consequences, and while the current US gov doesn't care about them, people are directly affected and are rightfully pissed about it.

Bombing/invading foreign countries to get the oil is obviously not the right approach, but relying on fracking isn't a clean solution either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxptRmMBIrE + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54if9r6yiQ8 + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DDbYSg0Alw taken in concert. It's a bit complicated, but all 3 together will give you a pretty holistic picture.

What’s even more puzzling is that line of reasoning was one reason why trump was elected in the first place: increase domestic oil supply and get out of foreign wars

My understanding is that the point is not to hit iran, but the oil market.

The US has stocks and production, but EU and china, trumps favorite economical targets, do not.

No proof to offer, but it fits with his other move when it come to economy.

The US doesn't need more oil, but if Iran were to cut off oil supply from the Persian Gulf it would make oil prices significantly more expensive by reducing total available worldwide supply. The US economy, for the better or worse of it, depends on cheap oil to supply energy for commerce and transportation, and if that becomes more expensive, people stop traveling, trucks stop shipping, energy stops being produced and millions of US jobs are at risk.

The whole "Death to America" and USA is the "Great Satan" make them a much more morally easy target given they have practically no ability to fight back.

Maybe I’m missing the subtler geopolitical point here, but I don’t think it’s about oil. It’s about preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons and threatening the region via their missiles, drones, and proxies.

Whether they succeed at it or not is an open question, but it seems clear that’s what it was about. Take operation midnight hammer last July. That was clearly only about the nuclear issue.

The US benefits from causing instability as it prevents a true rival peer power from forming.

MICE - Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego.

I think at least three might be at play here.

Guess who I'm talking about.

One reason among several is that middle east states fund the US fiscal deficit by buying treasuries with their oil revenues. If the US loses that source of financing then the US fiscal situation gets worse

There is only ONE country in the Middle-East whose borders are, continuously growing...for the last 78 years ;-) Something about a promise from God...

Empire

Israel.

Israel bought and/or blackmailed our politicians. We are doing it for them, our greatest ally .

They literally told us it was about Israel. There's no mystery.

Israeli hegemonic ambition. Zionist funding of Trump's campaign. Corrupt profiteering from market manipulation. Distraction from the Epstein files. Gullibility of a large fraction of the US public. Trump's ego and stupidity. And when a nuclear superpower starts a war like this, there's not much anyone else can do to stop it. The result: a massive strategic blunder for the US, the true cost of which may not be fully understood for many years.

Both the reasons (AIPAC + pricing Oil in USD helps finance our deficits) are why we were there. But both of those reasons have been severely weakened, to the point of probably being eliminated anyways:

1. After the midterms, we'll get a read on how much AIPAC is still able to buy congressmen.

2. Before Trump obeyed Israel and bombed Iran, we had the illusion of being invincible. But now, we are faced with the brut reality that we cannot guarantee the flow of oil through the Hormuz straight, nor almost anywhere else in that whole hemisphere. Even to Europe: Ask Putin how much drones have changed the game.

This really eliminates any remaining motivations to keep pricing oil in USD. Which removes most of the motivations for the world to keep financing our deficit.

At this point our best option is to just leave the region, and try to transition to renewables absolutely as fast as we can. Oh, and raise taxes on everybody, because demand for our bonds is going to crater.

AIPAC is the single most influential special interest group in US politics. If you don't do what AIPAC says to advance their foreign policy goals, they will remove you from office at the next election. They do this on a regular basis and even publicly brag about it.

Maybe the abundance was just a lie. We never know. Considering the amount of shameless lies the west manufactures every day, I wouldn't believe one word that comes from there.

One has to re-examine every claim ever made about capabilities from the west. Never thought I would say this. Heck they lost with 2 aircraft carriers against Ansarallah last year.

Iran is generally a country run by some bad people. Letting them get nuclear weapons is a bad idea. Take a look at North Korea, they literally starve their people and there isn't much we can do about it now.

It’s because Israel has captured the US government through a combination of lobbying and probably blackmail. The endless wars in the Middle East are to bolster them as a regional and then global superpower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_...

The TikTok deal happened because too many young people were being exposed to anti Zionist content. It’s illegal to criticize Israel in many regions of the US, but not illegal to criticize the US. It’s illegal to boycott Israeli companies in many states, but not US companies. This war on Iran hurts everybody because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, except for Israel who now has a severely diminished adversary to their regional dominance. It’s not even a secret, Israeli’s boast about this on social media and have a whole hit list of countries they want the US to attack. Turkey is next on the list so expect to start seeing more seemingly random antagonistic rhetoric from the US about Turkey.