The Price of War

Wars don’t exist in isolation. The U.S. interventions of the past have helped shape today’s conditions. Policies that removed a popular leader, backed a closely aligned authoritarian government or spurred covert operations have created cycles of resentment and conflict that reverberate across generations.

The current U.S. war in Iran, and the language being used to justify it, strongly resembles past patterns, and that resemblance has consequences. The conflict has already pushed oil prices past $100 per barrel. And history shows that once war in the Middle East escalates, energy prices rarely retreat quickly; they surge first and settle much later.

To understand how we got here, and why this matters far beyond the price at the pump, it helps to step back and look at the long and painful history between the United States and Iran.

In August 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom orchestrated a covert overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had come to power after nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, which Western interests had previously dominated. Those governments feared losing access to Iran’s oil and worried about broader geopolitical influence during the Cold War. This marked the beginning of the modern era of U.S. involvement in Iran.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and British intelligence coordinated Operation Ajax. They used propaganda, street protests and bribery to destabilize Mossadegh’s government and led a coup that removed him from office. In his place, they restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a ruler who aligned Iran with Western powers and maintained a pro‑American monarchy for the next 25 years.

That intervention left deep resentment among many Iranians. The feeling of foreign powers determining their nation’s future became a central memory in Iranian political identity.

Under the shah, Iran’s revenues continued to flow out of the country, its political opposition was suppressed, and dissent was treated ruthlessly by the secret police. Many Iranians began to see the shah’s government as corrupt and disconnected from their needs. That resentment built slowly until it could no longer be contained.

By late 1978, widespread protests rocked Iran. Students, workers, religious leaders and ordinary citizens took to the streets, demanding an end to the shah’s rule. In January 1979, the shah fled the country. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a passionate religious leader, returned from exile and quickly rose to power. The result was a revolution that transformed Iran into an Islamic republic.

The new government of Iran made opposition to foreign interference a core principle. That sentiment became the backdrop for one of the most significant crises in modern U.S. foreign policy.

In November 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They took 52 American diplomats and embassy staff hostage and held them for 444 days, starting the Iran Hostage Crisis. This was more than a diplomatic incident. It was a national trauma for the United States.

The crisis began after the United States allowed the exiled shah to enter the country for medical treatment. Iranian revolutionaries saw this as a possible first step toward reinstalling him. Their anger boiled over into violence at the embassy, and the hostages were held for over a year.

During that time, the United States tried negotiations. It also tried a risky military rescue mission in the Iranian desert called Operation Eagle Claw. That mission failed when several helicopters malfunctioned, killing eight U.S. servicemen.

The hostage crisis ended in January 1981, on the very day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president. For Americans, the protestors holding the hostages became a symbol of U.S. humiliation. For Iranians, it was seen as a necessary act of defiance and sovereignty after years of interference.

But the economic consequences of upheaval in Iran were already being felt. The disruption in Iranian oil production, combined with earlier OPEC production cuts and general instability in the Middle East, contributed to sharp increases in global fuel prices. Throughout the United States, gas stations saw long lines, shortages, and higher prices that impacted daily life. Those fuel disruptions played a role in public dissatisfaction with the economy and influenced politics throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.

While the hostage crisis was still unresolved, a new conflict erupted across Iran’s western border.

In September 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran. Hussein believed Iran was weakened after the revolution and sought to seize oil‑rich territory along the border. What followed became the Iran – Iraq War, an eight-year conflict that became one of the longest and deadliest wars of the 20^th century.

Both sides launched massive attacks, targeted oil infrastructure and even used chemical weapons against troops and civilians. The war did not produce a clear territorial victory. When it finally ended in 1988, both nations were exhausted and devastated, and millions of people had been killed or wounded.

The conflict between two major oil producers affected global energy markets. Production instability and threats to shipping increased fuel costs worldwide and disrupted economic stability in many countries, including the United States.

Less known among ordinary Americans, but no less consequential, was a mid‑1980s scandal that revealed secret U.S. foreign policy operations. Even as the United States publicly opposed Iran’s government and its policies, a senior official in the Reagan administration

arranged for secret arms sales to Iran in hopes of securing the release of Americans held by Iran-allied militant groups in Lebanon.

The profits from these arms sales were then illegally diverted to fund the Contras, violating explicit congressional bans on supporting the anti‑communist rebel fighters in Nicaragua. Several senior administration officials were implicated. Oliver North, a Marine officer on the National Security Council, became the public face of the scandal, famously testifying before Congress that he had acted out of national security concerns.

The Iran‑Contra affair revealed a willingness within the U.S. government to conduct covert operations that directly violated U.S. law and congressional authority. The fallout eroded public trust in government and highlighted the complexities and contradictions of U.S. foreign policy.

These past crises have shaped how Americans view justifications for military action today, especially when government leaders invoke the specter of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq under the leadership of former President George W. Bush, claiming that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed chemical, biological and, potentially, nuclear weapons. Those claims were used as the central rationale for war.

After the invasion, years of investigation found that Iraq had long since dismantled its WMD programs, and no active stockpiles were discovered. Intelligence failures, misinterpretations and political pressure combined to produce a flawed justification for a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and destabilized the region for decades.

The parallels with today’s conflict in Iran are striking. Once again, claims about weapons programs are being publicly cited to justify military action. History should make that a matter of scrutiny rather than unquestioned acceptance.