After a triumph in Venezuela, Trump believed he could do the same in Iran. This was Plan A.
There is a certain kind of foreign-policy fantasy that keeps returning to Washington, London, Tel Aviv, and certain exile circles. It is a fantasy that a country can be cracked open quickly, its government replaced, its military split, its people persuaded, its resources redirected, and its future reorganized before anyone has time to resist.
That fantasy was tried, in one form, in Venezuela. Declare the government illegitimate. Recognize an alternative authority. Encourage defections. Seize or redirect overseas assets. Use sanctions to squeeze the incumbent state. Hope the military flips. Hope the people flood the streets. Hope international pressure creates a quick collapse. Then, once the old state is broken, step in with friendly capital, friendly contracts, friendly banking, friendly energy deals, and friendly political supervision.
Sometimes, this fantasy is realized. It worked in Venezuela. So, this same fantasy was projected onto Iran.
The fantasy goes something like this: the Iranian regime is unpopular; therefore, the Iranian state is brittle. The people are angry; therefore, they will welcome foreign pressure. The economy is hurting; therefore, the country is ready to surrender. The security services are divided; therefore, an external push will split them. Exile media can create momentum. Opposition figures can be elevated. Sanctions can do the rest. Then, in the confusion, a new government can be recognized, assets can be unfrozen, oil and gas can be opened, aviation can be reopened, pipelines can be discussed, ports can be reorganized, and Iran can be pulled into a new regional architecture designed by everyone except Iranians.
Let’s be clear, this is not strategy. This is a fantasy. It was wish dressed up as a plan.
The prize is obvious. Iran is not a small country on the margins of the world. It is one of the great geographic pivots of Eurasia. It sits between the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, South Asia, the Caucasus, and the Mediterranean corridor. It has vast oil and gas reserves. It has ports, minerals, an educated population, a large internal market, and a national position that could reshape energy flows, trade routes, aviation, pipelines, and regional finance. A post-sanctions Iran would be one of the largest economic openings in the world.
So, yes, energy is not incidental. Oil and gas are not some minor side issue. They are central to the temptation.
But the modern version of resource capture does not usually look like old colonialism. It does not always arrive with soldiers standing around oil wells. It arrives with contracts. It arrives with debt. It arrives with privatization. It arrives with emergency stabilization plans. It arrives with “technical assistance.” It arrives with banking access, sanctions waivers, production-sharing agreements, infrastructure concessions, and friendly intermediaries who somehow happen to get the first bite of the apple.
That is the greater danger. The fantasy is not necessarily that someone invades Iran and literally steals the oil. The fantasy is that Iran can be politically broken, then economically reopened on terms written by outsiders.
And that is where the fantasy collapses.
Iran is not merely a regime. Iran is a civilization-state. It has a long memory. It has been invaded, manipulated, sanctioned, flattered, betrayed, and studied by foreign powers for generations. Iranians may despise their rulers. They may want reform. They may want secularization. They may want normal life, normal trade, normal aviation, normal banking, normal relations with the world. But that does not mean they want their country handed over to a foreign-sponsored committee of opportunists, contractors, oilmen, intelligence assets, and exiles with television studios.
This is the mistake outsiders keep making. They confuse opposition to the regime with consent to foreign domination. They confuse economic exhaustion with national surrender. They confuse anger with availability. They think because people are tired, they are ready to be managed. They think because people want change, they will accept anyone who promises change.
But Iran’s nationalism runs deeper than its politics.
That is why the “quick power grab” theory is so dangerous. It misunderstands the relationship between the Iranian people and the Iranian state. Many Iranians may oppose the Islamic Republic, but they do not oppose Iran. Many may hate the clerical system, but they do not hate Iranian sovereignty. Many may want to end sanctions, but they do not want sanctions replaced by foreign receivership. Many may want the country opened, but not auctioned.
The fantasy depends on speed. Move fast. Create confusion. Recognize a new authority. Break morale. Seize assets. Announce transition. Flood the zone with diplomatic language. Make it sound inevitable.
But legitimacy cannot be air-dropped. Sovereignty cannot be outsourced. A nation cannot be conquered by press release.
And Iran, of all countries, is perhaps the worst target for this kind of fantasy. Its people know history. They remember 1953. They remember the Shah. They remember the revolution. They remember Saddam’s invasion. They remember sanctions. They remember assassinations. They remember broken promises. They remember how foreign powers talk about freedom while quietly calculating oil, gas, ports, pipelines, and military positioning.
That does not mean the regime is safe forever. Far from it. The Islamic Republic has deep legitimacy problems. It has alienated huge parts of the population. It has suffocated creativity, prosperity, women’s freedom, political normality, and Iran’s natural role in the world. In the long run, it may well become a shell, a veneer, an exhausted ideology covering a society that has already moved beyond it.
But if Iran changes, the change must be Iranian. It must be rooted in Iranian legitimacy, institutions, sovereignty, memory, and national interest. Otherwise the first act of any new order would be to discredit itself.
That is the fatal flaw in the fantasy.
The fantasy assumes Iran is waiting to be taken. In reality, Iran is waiting to be restored.
There is a profound difference.
A serious policy would recognize that sanctions cannot be the permanent architecture of relations with Iran. A serious policy would understand that Iran’s reintegration into the world economy is not a gift to Tehran but a strategic opportunity for the entire region. A serious policy would aim for aviation safety, energy normalization, trade corridors, student exchange, banking transparency, and gradual political opening. A serious policy would understand that the goal should not be to break Iran, but to give Iranian society room to breathe.
But the fantasy does not want patience. It wants drama. It wants collapse. It wants the movie version: crowds in the streets, generals defecting, flags changing, assets unlocked, contracts signed, oil flowing, victory speeches delivered.
That is not how real nations work.
Especially not Iran.
Iran can be reformed. Iran can be reopened. Iran can be reconciled with the world. Iran can become one of the most important bridges between East and West. But it cannot be treated as a prize to be grabbed in the confusion of regime collapse. Any plan built on that assumption is not only immoral; it is incompetent.
But wait, there was a Plan B, which had been carefully, quietly developed over decades by multiple administrations. And Plan B is working – for now.
The Petrodollar Becomes The LNG-Dollar
For decades, the world understood the petrodollar bargain. Oil moved through the Persian Gulf. The United States protected the flow. The world priced energy in dollars. Gulf states accumulated dollar surpluses. Those surpluses recycled into U.S. banks, U.S. weapons, U.S. Treasury bonds, and U.S.-anchored capital markets.
That was the old system.
But something very important has changed. The petrodollar has not disappeared. It has evolved. It has become, in part, the LNG-dollar.
Liquefied natural gas is now one of the central fuels of global energy security. Europe needs it after losing confidence in Russian gas. Asia needs it to fuel growth. India, Japan, Korea, China, and much of Southeast Asia depend on imported gas. And the United States is now the world’s largest LNG exporter, shipping about 11.9 billion cubic feet per day in 2024, ahead of Qatar and Australia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
This changes the entire strategic map.
The old petrodollar system depended on the United States protecting Middle Eastern energy. The new LNG-dollar system increasingly depends on the United States supplying energy directly.
That distinction is enormous.
Now consider the Strait of Hormuz. Qatar is one of the world's great LNG powers. But Qatar has a geographic problem: its exports must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The EIA estimates that about one-fifth of global LNG trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 2024, primarily from Qatar. The International Energy Agency has noted that roughly 93% of Qatar’s LNG exports and 96% of the UAE's LNG exports transit through the Strait of Hormuz, with no real alternative maritime route.
So if Hormuz is choked, Qatar’s LNG model is compromised.
Qatar can have the reserves. Qatar can have the liquefaction trains. Qatar can have the long-term contracts. But if the ships cannot reliably exit the Persian Gulf, then Qatar is no longer the same supplier. It becomes a geographically risky supplier.
And who benefits?
The United States.
U.S. LNG does not need Hormuz. It leaves from the Gulf Coast and Atlantic-facing routes. It can move to Europe. It can move through the Panama Canal, around the Cape, or across global shipping networks into Asia. It is not hostage to the same chokepoint.
So every disruption in Hormuz does more than raise energy prices. It changes buyer psychology. European and Asian customers are beginning to ask a very simple question: who can supply us without being trapped in the Persian Gulf?
The answer is increasingly: America.
That means the war with Iran and the broader insecurity around Hormuz do not merely affect oil. It restructures the global LNG market. It weakens Qatar’s reliability. It prevents Iran from entering the LNG market. It increases the strategic value of U.S. LNG. And because LNG is generally priced, financed, insured, shipped, and hedged through dollar-based systems, it reinforces the dollar itself.
This is the LNG-dollar thesis.
But the Iran dimension is even more important.
Iran is not merely an oil state. Iran is a suppressed gas superpower. It has among the largest natural gas reserves in the world, second only to Russia by many estimates. It shares the giant South Pars/North Field gas structure with Qatar. Qatar turned its side into a global LNG empire. Iran, because of sanctions, isolation, financing limits, and denial of liquefaction technology, never fully entered the LNG market.
That is the buried story.
If Iran were normalized, it could become a gigantic gas exporter. It could export LNG from its southern coast. It could send pipeline gas to Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, India, and potentially Europe. It could become a petrochemical powerhouse. It could link Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and Europe. It could become not just an energy country, but an energy platform.
That would be a major strategic problem for existing LNG powers.
A normalized Iran would compete with Qatar. It would compete with Russia. It would compete with U.S. LNG. It would offer Europe and Asia another source of long-term energy supply. It would also reduce sanctions-based systems' ability to control Eurasian trade.
So, what does a war with Iran do?
It blocks Iran from entering the market. It makes Qatar’s route look unsafe. It reinforces the need for non-Hormuz supply. It pushes Europe and Asia toward American LNG. It strengthens U.S. energy leverage. It reinforces the dollar.
In other words, the war does not only degrade Iran militarily. It freezes Iran out of the next energy system.
That is why the phrase “designer war” becomes so uncomfortable.
One does not need to claim that someone wrote a memo saying, “Start a war to sell American LNG.” That is not the point. The point is that the outcome looks engineered. The result is so strategically convenient that it deserves scrutiny.
Iran, the future gas superpower, remains blocked.
Qatar, the present gas superpower, becomes vulnerable at the chokepoint.
Russia remains sanctioned and distrusted.
Europe and Asia become desperate for secure supply.
The United States stands outside the chokepoint with expanding LNG capacity, dollar-denominated contracts, financial depth, naval power, and political leverage.
That is not a small coincidence. That is a system-level outcome.
The old petrodollar was built around protecting other people’s oil. The new LNG-dollar is built around selling American gas into a frightened world.
And fear is a powerful market maker.
Every war rearranges maps. But modern wars also rearrange contracts, currencies, shipping lanes, insurance premiums, investment decisions, and future market share. The war with Iran must be understood in that light. It is not just about missiles, nuclear facilities, regime behavior, or regional politics. It is about who gets to monetize Eurasian energy in the 21st century.
Iran’s gas reserves are not theoretical. They are real. Qatar has already proved the business model. The question is whether Iran will ever be allowed to replicate it.
If Iran were free to develop, finance, liquefy, export, and connect, the global gas market would look very different. The dollar-energy system would face a new Eurasian competitor. The Persian Gulf would no longer be a collection of small U.S.-protected monarchies plus a sanctioned Iran. It would include a large, industrial, educated, strategically located Iranian gas power.
That is precisely what the current order cannot easily absorb. The petrodollar has partly become the LNG-dollar. And yes, Hormuz is the hinge. And yes, a war with Iran would block both current and future competitors to U.S. LNG.
The polite version is that Plan B has effectively made the United States the key beneficiary of the current market structure.
The blunt version of Plan B is that the war is helping design the next energy order.
Don’t believe the pundits online; Iran is NOT winning; the US is quietly winning … for now.
But here’s the question: has Plan B considered everything? Not to pre-empt a future blog, but my contention now is that there is a need for Plan C!