Geopolitical oil price surge reflects systemic energy insecurity tied to fossil fuel dependence and failed diplomacy
Original framing: “Oil price hits $110 on Iran talks uncertainty” — Financial Times
The 1973 oil crisis and 2008 price spike reveal cyclical patterns of price volatility tied to geopolitical leverage, not supply fundamentals. Colonial powers historically manipulated oil markets to control Global South economies, a legacy that persists in OPEC's role as a swing producer. The current surge echoes the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran, which installed the Shah to secure Western oil access, underscoring how energy geopolitics is inseparable from imperial history.
The oil price surge to $110 is not an exogenous shock but a symptom of a global economy addicted to fossil fuels, where speculative finance, colonial legacies, and authoritarian petrostates form a self-reinforcing system.
Mainstream narratives frame this as a geopolitical puzzle solvable through diplomacy, yet the real crisis is structural: a 20th-century energy model collapsing under the weight of 21st-century climate realities. Indigenous resistance, from the Amazon to the Niger Delta, exposes the violence of this system, while African and Middle Eastern experiences reveal how oil wealth entrenches inequality. The solution lies not in tweaking markets but in dismantling the extractive logic itself—through democratic energy ownership, financial regulation, and reparative governance that centers the Global South. The irony is that the same financial institutions betting on oil's volatility could fund its demise, if only power were redistributed. The path forward requires embracing the trickster's lesson: to laugh at the absurdity of a system that enriches a few while impoverishing the many, and to act before the joke turns tragic.