The Gas Cult: The Real Religion Behind The Latest War In The Middle East

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If you look at the headlines coming out of the Middle East recently, you might think you’re watching heaps of American military strength on full display. Bombs are dropping, shipping lanes are being patrolled, and the administration is flexing its kinetic muscle across the Persian Gulf. And this is just a few weeks after flexing in Venezuela, pulling off the abduction of the country’s leader.

But peel back the political rhetoric, and what you’re actually watching isn’t a projection of strength. It’s the frantic flailing of an empire trapped in a 1920s mindset, desperately trying to protect an obsolete asset with 2020s technology. By attempting to control the global flow of oil through military blockades, Washington is operating on century-old assumptions that are actively surrendering the future of the global economy to our adversaries.

The “Wrecking Ball” Doctrine: Demolition Without Reconstruction

The target selection in Operation Epic Fury (the attack on Iran) betrays a cynical new reality in American statecraft. Unlike the post-WWII Marshall Plan — which recognized that economic stability is the only cure for authoritarianism — today’s strategy is a “Wrecking Ball” exercise.

According to CENTCOM’s own strike assessments, we aren’t hitting the street-level security forces or the “instruments of repression” that would actually empower the Iranian people to retake their country. Instead, the focus is on decapitating the senior leaders, dismantling infrastructure, and making it impossible for Iran to reassemble its government.

This is Total State Dislocation. We break the state and walk away, leaving a desperate population to absorb the chaos so that the country is off the playing field of international relations for years or even decades. History teaches us that desperate people choose authoritarians, yet we continue to create the very vacuums that our enemies are best equipped to fill.

The Fatal Flaw: Fossil Fuels As The State Religion

Why is Washington doubling down on a strategy that seems designed to fail? The flaw isn’t a lack of information; it’s a filter of cultural obsession.

Within the MAGA movement, fossil fuels have transcended economics to become a cultural and nearly religious identity. This fascination with “liquid gold” drives the administration to ignore the truth-tellers. Political scientists and Southwest Asia experts are likely screaming into the void that the US has been a net exporter of petroleum since 2021, yet we still spend trillions “securing” a global price we no longer physically depend on. This obsession causes leadership to sideline the better intelligence analysts in favor of ideological “wrecking ball” optics.

The China Integration Play

While we act as the world’s unpaid demolition crew, Beijing is operating a century ahead of us. They execute the ancient statecraft of yǐ yí zhì yí (以夷制夷) (“using barbarians to control barbarians”).

China waits for the U.S. to shatter a region. Once the ashes settle, China slides in with the Belt and Road checkbook. In 2025, China’s crude imports hit a record 11.6 million barrels per day, much of it bought at “black market” discounts from nations we’ve shattered or sanctioned. We do the fighting; they take advantage of the situation and eventually weave the country into their sphere of influence and economic control.

The Citizen Counter-Offensive

We cannot wait for a policy shift from a capital city that is culturally addicted to combustion. We have to stop this, and the only way we can do it is to strike at the root of the problem: the cultural obsession with fossil fuels.

We can’t do this by shaming the citizenry. The average person only knows what they grew up with: a world where fossil fuels are a lifeline. Relying on gasoline to get to work is as natural as breathing air or peeing in a toilet. Telling people that they have to give up something that they rely on, especially when loudmouth politicians are telling them lies about EVs, sounds like asking them to sell a child or move to Antarctica. It’s unimaginable to many people.

Instead of telling people that they have to change, we need to instead work to smash the mythical structure that keeps them from seeing that other things are possible.

Early on, Tesla’s unaffordable EVs did that for many of us. Seeing the Model S roast muscle cars at the drag strip, seeing a Supercharger pop up in a parking lot nearby, and hearing about EV road trips shattered the myth for us early adopters.

I can’t tell you personally how to smash the myth for your friends and family members, but I can tell you what I’m doing. This year, I’m going to tow a heavy travel trailer along the entire length of Route 66 for the 100-year anniversary of the highway’s birth. Then, I’m going to continue on to the next coast and end up in the Outer Banks.

The thing that everyone is calling “impossible” or “unrealistic” online — I’m going to do it. You can follow me to see it all here.

You can find ways to take a swing at anti-EV myths yourself. Be creative and make sure people know that they don’t need Donald Trump to go smash other countries to save them a buck.

Featured image by the National Archives (Public Domain).