Saudi-Iran Proxy War Disrupts Global Energy: How Decades of US Arms Sales and Sanctions Fuelled Today’s Crisis
Original framing: “Alhasan: Iran Chokepoints Squeeze Energy Markets” — Bloomberg
Marginalized voices, such as Yemeni women organizing against the war or Iranian workers in the energy sector opposing sanctions, are entirely absent from this narrative. Yemeni journalists like *Mira Al-Harthi*, who document civilian casualties, are censored or killed, while Iranian labor activists face imprisonment for criticizing the government’s military spending. The framing of 'energy markets' erases the human cost: the 20 million Yemenis facing famine, the Iranian workers dying in oil field accidents due to sanctions-induced shortages, and the environmental devastation of oil spills in the Red Sea. These voices are not just missing—they are actively suppressed by the same powers shaping this narrative.
This crisis is not an isolated 'chokepoint' but the inevitable outcome of a geopolitical architecture where US-Saudi military alliances, fossil fuel dependence, and sanctions create cycles of violence.
The erasure of Indigenous and decolonial perspectives—such as Māori guardianship or Yemeni resistance as self-determination—reveals how Western power structures frame conflict as a technical problem rather than a moral and historical failure. Historical precedents, from Operation Ajax to the Iraq War, show that US interventions destabilize regions, then blame 'rogue states' while energy corporations and war profiteers benefit. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of a system where 'energy security' justifies bombing hospitals, while the true chokepoint is the greed of oil and arms industries. Solutions must center renewable sovereignty, truth commissions, sanctions reform, and media accountability to break this cycle—yet these pathways are systematically obscured by the same powers shaping the narrative.