Analysis of: Oil prices rise amid fears of US strikes on Iran – business live
The Guardian | February 19, 2026
TL;DR
Oil prices spike as markets price in 70% chance of US strikes on Iran, threatening global supply chains and inflation. Working people face higher costs while capital hedges bets and weapons manufacturers profit.
Analytical Focus:Contradictions Material Conditions Interconnections
The threat of US military strikes on Iran has sent oil prices to six-month highs, revealing the deep entanglement between imperial geopolitics and the material conditions of everyday life. Markets now price a 70% probability of US military action, with analysts warning of supply shocks, inflation spikes, and interest rate implications—consequences that will fall disproportionately on working-class households already struggling with elevated energy costs and stagnant wages. This article inadvertently exposes a fundamental contradiction of late capitalism: the same system that promises stability through market mechanisms is perpetually destabilized by the imperial competition inherent to capitalist accumulation. The framing focuses almost exclusively on investor concerns—'complacency,' 'repricing events,' 'volatility shocks'—while the material impact on workers appears only obliquely through references to inflation and British manufacturers' 'punitive energy costs.' The article naturalizes military aggression as merely another market variable to be priced in. Meanwhile, the UK's statistical agency quietly announces it will 'pause' greenhouse gas emissions data to focus on 'core statistics'—a telling prioritization that reveals how environmental concerns remain subordinate to the economic metrics that serve capital accumulation. British manufacturers plead for government support against energy costs while Centrica shareholders absorb a 39% profit decline—demonstrating how even capitalists face disciplining by market forces they cannot individually control. The interconnection of these seemingly disparate stories illustrates how energy, war, inflation, and production form a unified system of contradictions that shapes the terrain of class struggle.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Financial traders and investors, Energy corporations (Centrica, oil producers), US military-industrial complex, British manufacturers (CBI representatives), Working-class consumers and households, Central bank policymakers, Iranian state and population, Tech corporations (Apple, Nvidia, Meta)
Beneficiaries: Oil producers and traders positioned for price spikes, Defense contractors and weapons manufacturers, Financial speculators hedging geopolitical risk, Capital holders with diversified portfolios
Harmed Parties: Working-class households facing higher energy and consumer prices, British manufacturing workers facing job insecurity, Iranian civilians facing potential military strikes, Small businesses unable to absorb energy cost increases, Workers globally facing inflation-driven interest rate hikes
The article centers the perspectives of market analysts, corporate executives, and financial institutions while treating workers as invisible victims of 'inflation.' The US state exercises imperial prerogative over global energy markets, while central banks mediate between capital's need for stability and its tolerance for controlled crisis. British manufacturers appeal to the state for support, revealing their dependence on political intervention despite free-market ideology.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Oil price volatility driven by geopolitical uncertainty, Control over the Strait of Hormuz (20% of global oil transit), Energy costs squeezing British manufacturing margins, Inflation pressure constraining central bank policy, Corporate profit cycles (Centrica's 39% profit decline), Technology sector valuations affecting market sentiment
The article reveals how energy—a foundational input to all production—remains subject to imperial competition rather than rational planning. British manufacturers cite energy costs as their primary burden, demonstrating how productive capital remains subordinate to finance capital and resource-controlling states. Centrica's pivot from shareholder buybacks to 'major projects' illustrates the tension between short-term financial extraction and long-term productive investment.
Resources at Stake: Iranian oil production capacity, Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes, British energy infrastructure investments (Sizewell C, Grain LNG), Global supply chain stability, Workers' purchasing power through inflation effects
Historical Context
Precedents: 2022-23 energy price shock following Russia's Ukraine invasion, US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Historical Western attempts at Iranian regime change (1953 coup), 1970s oil shocks and stagflation, Venezuela sanctions and oil market manipulation
This moment represents the continued crisis of US hegemony in the era of financialized capitalism. Unable to achieve dominance through purely economic means, the US increasingly relies on military threats to maintain control over strategic resources. The article's reference to Trump's criticism of 'failed interventions' while preparing new ones illustrates the repetition compulsion of imperial logic—each failure generates conditions for the next attempt. The UK's manufacturing decline and statistical agency's 'quality over quantity' retreat reflect the hollowing-out of productive capacity in core capitalist nations increasingly dependent on financial services and resource extraction elsewhere.
Contradictions
Primary: Capitalism requires stable conditions for accumulation, yet the competition between capitals and states inherent to the system perpetually generates the instability it cannot tolerate. Markets price in war as risk, yet the market system produces the imperial competition driving toward war.
Secondary: Investors seek returns while their 'complacency' about war risks destabilizes returns, States promise to protect national interests while policies benefit capital over workers, Energy transition investments require stable profits that geopolitical chaos undermines, Statistical agencies must produce accurate data but lack resources due to austerity measures, Manufacturers demand lower costs while the system generating those costs remains unquestioned
Short-term, these contradictions may produce either military escalation (with accompanying economic crisis) or negotiated de-escalation (temporary stabilization). Long-term, the structural contradiction between socialized global production and private/national appropriation of energy resources cannot be resolved within capitalism. Each resolution creates conditions for the next crisis, potentially radicalizing workers facing repeated shocks while delegitimizing the market system's claims to efficiency and rationality.
Global Interconnections
This story crystallizes how imperial competition, energy markets, and working-class living standards form an integrated system of domination. Iran's strategic position at the Strait of Hormuz—through which 20% of global oil transits—makes it a perpetual target for powers seeking to control the material basis of global production. The threatened disruption connects immediately to British manufacturing struggles, European market declines, and potential interest rate decisions by central banks worldwide. Workers in Sheffield, Tehran, and Texas are linked by supply chains they do not control. The article's juxtaposition of war speculation with the UK's decision to pause greenhouse gas emissions reporting reveals how environmental concerns remain subordinate to the accumulation imperatives driving both military competition and fossil fuel dependence. The 'energy transition' investments Centrica touts occur within a framework where geopolitical control of hydrocarbons remains paramount—a contradiction that market mechanisms cannot resolve. The global working class faces these interconnected crises as fragmented national populations, while capital operates transnationally, hedging risks across borders that constrain workers' solidarity.
Conclusion
This article, ostensibly about oil prices, reveals the architecture of a system in which working people's livelihoods depend on decisions made by military planners, financial traders, and corporate executives pursuing interests fundamentally opposed to their own. The market's 70% probability of war is not a neutral calculation but a measure of how normalized imperial violence has become in managing capitalist accumulation. For workers facing higher prices, stagnant wages, and potential job losses, the lesson is clear: there is no technical or market-based solution to contradictions rooted in the structure of capitalism itself. The connections between British manufacturing decline, Iranian oil, and global inflation point toward the necessity of international working-class solidarity against a system that generates crises it can only resolve through further exploitation and violence.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of how capitalist competition drives imperial conflict over resources and markets directly illuminates the US-Iran confrontation and its connection to oil supply control.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007) Klein's examination of how crises—including wars—are exploited to restructure economies against working-class interests explains the mechanism by which geopolitical instability benefits capital.
- The New Imperialism by David Harvey (2003) Harvey's concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' helps explain how military threats serve to open new spaces for capital accumulation when traditional expansion falters.