How America’s Oil and Gas Dominance Has Weakened Iran

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The left has intoned for years that climate change poses a clear and present threat to U.S. national security. The Biden Defense Department produced two dozen reports on the subject and strategized to reduce the military’s CO2 footprint, such as by procuring 100% electric civilian vehicles.

Soldiers were required to undergo “climate literacy education.” Pentagon officials recommended that “sustainability literacy metrics” be integrated into the “consideration of promotions, evaluations, and awards.” America’s adversaries must have chuckled and cheered.

As the war in Iran lays bare, the real national-security risk was the left’s climate agenda, which threatened to enrich hostile regimes and empower them to weaponize their energy resources. America’s fossil-fuel dominance has substantially weakened the governments in Russia and Iran and their ability to wage war against the U.S. and its allies.

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Unlike during past oil shocks in the 1970s and the first Gulf War, the U.S. doesn’t depend on the Middle East for oil. The vast majority of the oil that Americans consume is now produced in the U.S. and Canada. The exception is California, which imports 60% of its crude and 15% of its gasoline as a result of anti-fossil-fuel policies that have constrained in-state production and limited pipelines from America’s Gulf Coast. Still, most of California’s crude imports come from South America.

Americans will see higher prices in the short term because oil is traded globally. But we face little risk of actual supply shortages, unlike during the 1970s. More vulnerable is China, which gets most of its oil from the Middle East and Russia.

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