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When gas prices jumped more than 30 percent in some states in mid-March due to the war in Iran, many climate advocates made the case that fossil fuels are volatile commodities, and a transition to clean energy offers far more financial stability for American households. I wholeheartedly agree with that argument. But it leaves out a crucial part of the story.
Sure, if the world ran on solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear reactors, heat pumps, electric vehicles, bicycles, and reliable public transportation, energy prices would be cheaper and more predictable, including during a war. Once a renewable electricity source is built, global energy markets can’t really disrupt it. We don’t have to import the wind or the sun. But that’s not all a green economy accomplishes.
The regime in Iran earned $43 billion in revenue from crude oil exports and sales in 2024 and billions more from petrochemicals and other adjacent industries. Up to one-third of the state budget comes from oil revenue (significantly down from previous years), and over half of Iran’s total oil proceeds are allocated to its armed forces. Billions of dollars per year more fund regional terror groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and these groups also work in conjunction with Iran’s armed forces to smuggle oil to international buyers so they can fund weapons and terrorist activity with the proceeds.
This oil fundraising has had disastrous consequences. The regime in Iran took over fifty American diplomats hostage for 444 days in 1979-81; backed Hezbollah’s killing 241 U.S. military personnel in Beirut in 1983; financed Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terror attack in Israel; backed the Houthis as they attacked over 100 merchant vessels in the Red Sea from 2023-2025 disrupting global shipping and killing sailors; and conducted its deadliest protest repression in decades this past January, killing over 30,000 of its own citizens according to multiple credible estimates. The more the world depends on oil, the more leverage this Iranian regime has to bring in massive flows of money, maintain cozy relationships with international buyers (primarily China), exert economic pressure on adversaries like the United States, destabilize the Middle East, and oppress the citizens of Iran without consequence.
The real wartime case against oil is not just that it spikes gas prices. As I published in Times of Israel this morning and will expound upon here, the deeper issue is that oil dependence props up the very regimes and crises that make those spikes inevitable. A clean energy transition alone won’t solve the Middle East, but in disempowering regimes like Iran’s, it could reduce the likelihood of a war like today’s, bring new hope for the Iranian people, and ensure no malintentioned foreign adversaries have the power to skyrocket our energy bills.