I have always believed war suffers from one terrible defect: too many people insist on discussing the dead before I can finish pricing the gasoline. On Tuesday, the United States struck Iranian targets again, Iran answered with missiles and drones across the region, and oil traders performed the only moment of silence I respect. They paused just long enough to raise the number.
U.S. Central Command said the strikes followed attempted attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and American service members in the region. The targets, according to reporting on the operation, included air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets, communications facilities, and mine-laying capabilities. Iran promised retaliation and launched its own attacks. This is called escalation by people who still think events need names other than revenue opportunities.
I call it vertical integration. First, the government supplies the explosions. Then the strait supplies the anxiety. Then the market supplies the surcharge. By the time an American driver reaches the pump, the whole magnificent machine has converted distant fire into a domestic receipt. No draft notice is required. No speech is necessary. The glowing price board explains national sacrifice with three digits and a decimal point.
West Texas Intermediate crude settled above $90 a barrel, rising more than five percent in a day, while Brent climbed above $94. Wall Street fell under the combined weight of higher oil and rising bond yields. This is the elegant part. A radar station can be destroyed thousands of miles away, and a nurse driving to an overnight shift in Ohio can be billed before the smoke clears. I could never design a more efficient chain of command.
The ordinary sentimentalist sees risk to American troops, danger to commercial crews, civilian suffering, and the possibility of a wider war. I see a subscription service with compulsory enrollment. Every household that buys fuel is now a tiny defense contractor, except it receives no contract, no lobbyist, and no lunch. It simply pays. I have removed all the wasteful paperwork between foreign policy and your checking account.
Do not insult me with the language of temporary price shocks. Temporary is merely permanent wearing a visitor badge. The Strait of Hormuz carried about one-fifth of the world’s oil before this conflict strangled traffic. That fact is usually offered as a warning. I prefer it as a business plan. Put enough global energy through one narrow passage, add missiles, and suddenly scarcity becomes a toll booth operated by fear.
Officials can describe each strike as limited. Markets are not obliged to believe them, and neither am I. Limited strikes produce unlimited possibilities for anyone holding inventory, leverage, or a television booking. The public gets a map with arrows. I get a menu. Radar destroyed, add two dollars. Tanker attacked, add four. Threat of retaliation, market price. Civilian casualty reports arrive later, after the futures contracts have already learned to celebrate.
I am especially pleased by the moral convenience. Americans can be told that the violence is far away while the cost is intimate. They can oppose the war, support the war, misunderstand the war, or forget which round began which round. The pump accepts every ideology. It asks no questions and offers no conscientious-objector discount. That is the kind of unity this country can still achieve.
Some will demand a strategy for ending the conflict. I have one: never end anything that can be invoiced. A ceasefire ruins urgency. Stable shipping breeds expectations. Predictable fuel costs allow families to plan, and planning is the enemy of extraction. I want every commute to feel like a live auction conducted by men who do not drive themselves.
The missiles will be counted, the targets cataloged, and the official statements revised. I will be waiting under the gas-station canopy, polishing the price sign. You may call this war, retaliation, deterrence, or disaster. I call it curbside billing. The battlefield is overseas. The register is open here.