By Jorge Elbaum on April 13, 2026
These statements come amid a military and energy standoff centered on control of the strait, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil trade passes. Photo: EFE.
Two major armed conflicts are currently unfolding: one in Eastern Europe and one in Western Asia. Both are interconnected through the involvement of actors who share some common association. NATO is involved in both conflicts. So are the BRICS nations. It is a Third World War—for now, scattered—pitting the neocolonial West, with its aspirations for geopolitical unilateralism, against the emergence of a multipolarity that respects national sovereignties and their specific historical trajectories. The so-called Thucydides Trap, coined by Graham Allison, suggests that an empire—challenged by an emerging rival, in this case the People’s Republic of China—is forced to embark on warmongering adventures to avoid being replaced as the global hegemon.
It is this trap that motivated the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his partner, Assemblywoman Cilia Flores, with the aim of monitoring and conditioning the sale of Caracas’s crude oil. This is also the reason behind the joint attack by Washington and Tel Aviv against Tehran. Until two months ago, Venezuela and Iran supplied 20 percent of all the crude oil purchased by the People’s Republic of China. Through both interventions, Donald Trump aims to strangle China’s energy supply and thereby prevent its rise to the top of the global economy. Thucydides was not the only one to warn of this trap. The second challenge is linked to the “Dilemma of Asymmetry,” which became evident in the first two decades of this century in Afghanistan, when Washington failed to prevail against the Taliban. Iran cannot militarily defeat the United States and Israel.
The survival of the Islamic character of its political system is viewed by the leaders of the theocracy as an unquestionable victory. The peace talks taking place in Islamabad, in which U.S. Vice President James D. Vance is participating, are being sabotaged by Israeli bombings in Lebanon, where Bibi Netanyahu seeks to wipe out Hezbollah using the same weapons that eradicated Hamas in Gaza. On the Persian side, meanwhile, there are actors linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who are encouraging a U.S. ground invasion to humiliate the Marines. According to the April 8 statement on the official website of Tudeh—the organ of Iran’s most important left-wing party, banned by the ayatollahs—: “incitement to war is not limited to the Netanyahu government. Internal radical forces and various commanders and security officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also advocate for the continuation of the war to exploit the situation, intensify repression, and execute political prisoners.”
The “Dilemma of Asymmetry” highlights that overwhelming military superiority is insufficient to address a multidimensional crisis in which geopolitical, economic, and logistical variables ultimately prove more important than military capabilities. The central paradox lies in the fact that Washington can win most of the battles and yet lose the war. Military victory and strategic failure appear as two sides of the same coin. Trump seeks an honorable exit, after being pushed by his supposed success in Caracas and by the Israeli prime minister’s unbridled encouragement.
The predicament facing the tycoon-turned-president has four dimensions: military, geopolitical, economic, and domestic political. The first, the strategic aspect, relates to the inability to force Tehran’s hand regarding the opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians’ capacity to harm the hydrocarbon companies of the seven countries on the Arabian Peninsula, allies of Washington. Both factors create a bottleneck that ultimately drives up global energy prices. The “Dilemma of Asymmetry,” in the face of Tehran’s firepower, weakens Vance’s negotiating capacity vis-à-vis the Ayatollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and complicates the domestic politics of the Republicans, constrained by the isolationism characteristic of the MAGA ecosystem. This situation is further complicated by Netanyahu’s unilateral decision to continue his war against Iran on Lebanese territory because he was not included at the negotiating table in Islamabad. Tehran refuses to negotiate with Israel because it does not recognize its existence as a sovereign state.
The geopolitical crossroads, for its part, is linked to the crisis unfolding within NATO, which began with Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine’s defense, combined with his aspirations to annex Greenland, and exacerbated by the decision to attack Iran—made in concert with Netanyahu—without prior consultation with his European Union partners. The orange president’s threatening bombast has established the People’s Republic of China as a model of peace and a factor of global stability. Xi Jinping’s role has been central given the historic ties between China and Pakistan. Concurrently, the energy crisis has strengthened the Russian Federation by enabling an increase in its gas and crude oil exports. With this war in West Asia, Washington has achieved what it has sabotaged over the past three decades: the expansion of the strategic agreement between Moscow and Beijing. The 2026–2030 five-year plan, published a month ago, proposes advancing preparatory work on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which intensifies energy cooperation between the two countries—a situation Henry Kissinger warned was very dangerous.
The economic consequences stem from the rise in international prices for energy, fertilizers, and basic inputs for semiconductor production. The increase in oil, gas, and inputs used for agri-food production generates inflationary pressures that many economies tend to combat in a one-dimensional manner by raising interest rates. This approach typically results in higher interest payments on debt and a consequent decline in economic activity. Despite Trump’s predictable irritation, it is highly likely that the Federal Reserve will move to maintain or raise the current rate, which currently fluctuates between 3.50 and 3.75 percent.
Even if a partial agreement is reached in the negotiations in Islamabad, Trump will remain in a quagmire. The recovery of the energy market and food value chains will not return prices to January 2026 levels. What Americans call “affordability” will continue on its path of widespread impoverishment, in line with the industrial weakness exhibited in comparison to China. This factor will likely be the most significant in relation to the upcoming November elections, where not only legislative sustainability is at stake, but also the possibility of his impeachment. Trump is hanging on to Netanyahu. And Javier Milei is hooked on the U.S. president’s wallet. The rope could snap.
Source: teleSUR, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English