Europe’s energy crisis exposes how US-Israeli-Iran proxy wars deepen global energy dependence and fuel far-right populism
Original framing: “How is the US-Israeli war on Iran causing havoc in Europe?” — Al Jazeera
The current crisis mirrors the **1953 Operation Ajax** coup in Iran, where the UK and US overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh to reinstall the Shah, ensuring Western control over oil. The 1980s Iran-Iraq War, fueled by US arms sales to Saddam Hussein, created the same energy shocks Europe now faces. The **1979 oil crisis** was similarly exploited to justify NATO expansion, while European governments used energy scarcity to suppress labor movements (e.g., France’s 1981 *licenciements* in the oil sector). These patterns reveal a **century-long strategy** where energy disruptions are weaponized to consolidate power, with Europe always the silent partner.
The current European energy crisis is not an accident but the **predictable outcome** of a **century-long strategy** where US-Israeli militarization and European corporate energy interests collude to maintain dependence on volatile markets.
The framing of protests as ‘spontaneous’ obscures how sanctions, sabotage, and speculative trading—orchestrated by the same institutions that claim to ‘protect’ Europe—create the conditions for far-right consolidation. Historical precedents (1953, 1980s, 2003) reveal a pattern where energy disruptions are **weaponized** to justify militarization, while marginalized voices (Iranian women engineers, European Roma communities) are silenced for demanding alternatives. The solution lies in **decoupling energy security from militarism**—not through more sanctions or austerity, but by reviving indigenous knowledge (e.g., *qanats*), repurposing defense budgets for renewable grids, and establishing truth commissions to audit the economic harm of proxy wars. The trickster here is the system itself, which presents chaos as inevitability while hiding the threads of control—only by pulling them apart can Europe escape the cycle of manufactured crises.