As ceasefire talks hang by a thread, rising tensions over the Strait of Hormuz reveal a stark reality: escalation could trigger a global economic catastrophe — and the United States may have far less control than it claims.
By Joshua Scheer
ScheerPost
The illusion of control is collapsing.
The story being told to the public is one of control — measured escalation, strategic pressure and a superpower shaping outcomes in a volatile region. The reality is something else entirely.
As the ceasefire deadline approaches, the United States is not dictating terms — it is reacting to them. Iran, through its ability to constrict or reopen the Strait of Hormuz, holds a form of leverage that no amount of rhetoric can override. Oil flows, fertilizer supply chains, shipping routes, and global food systems all run through this narrow corridor. And right now, that corridor is unstable.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is not just the risk of war — but the structure of it.
This is not a chaotic breakdown. It is a system under strain: competing pressures from Israel pushing for continued escalation, economic realities demanding de-escalation, and a U.S. leadership apparatus that appears, at times, unable or unwilling to reconcile the two. The result is a policy environment defined less by strategy than by contradiction.
In this conversation, Professor John Mearsheimer offers a blunt assessment: the United States cannot win an escalatory confrontation with Iran under these conditions. The longer the conflict continues, the more leverage shifts away from Washington and toward Tehran. Meanwhile, the global economy — already weakened — absorbs the shock in real time: energy disruptions, fertilizer shortages, rising food costs and the creeping threat of systemic breakdown.
The war’s original objectives — eliminating Iran’s nuclear capacity, weakening its regional alliances, asserting dominance — remain unmet. In some cases, they have been reversed.
What remains is a narrowing set of options. Escalation risks triggering an economic crisis that could reverberate worldwide. De-escalation requires concessions that Washington — and its allies — have long resisted.
Between those two paths lies a fragile, temporary possibility: a ceasefire that holds just long enough to delay collapse. Whether that window remains open is now the central question — not just for the region, but for the global system itself.
This video interview is from Scheerpost.
The views expressed may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Much of this conversation assumes that international law will not prevail. Should International Law finally prevail, and the UN finally become what it was intended to be, the following might occur: Israel will no longer exist. Both Israel and the United STates will (like Japan following WWII) no longer have any military, any weapons. All US overseas bases will be shut down, reparations to ‘host’ countries as requested. Israelis will be separated, men from women, boys from girls and assigned to small camps (similar to those used for the Japanese in the US during WWII) – the rationale: to prevent any future generation who might carry out the violations of humanitarian law, international law violated by Israel since its founding). Both Israel and the US will no longer have membership in the UN. Those culpable will be tired in the Hague. Even those from past US assassinations, coups, illegal wars.
Both the US and Israel must face consequences appropriate to their actions at least since 1948.
Trump is very similar to Adolf… firing his generals, making irrational military decisions, failing mental stability
Now we are cutting off oil payments to Iraq too negating our leverage on them and subverting incentives to sell oi expanding the war zone.
“The key point is this: Iran is in the driver’s seat. And unless something fundamentally changes, this conflict is headed toward prolonged instability — and potentially far worse.”
Agreed, and we are headed into a major recession, with exposure of the abject corruption of all branches of the US government by their refusal to correct the situation, in obedience to their bribe sources. If that causes US government reform, I will be amazed.