The energy shock from the Iran war is driving long-lasting change in the multitrillion-dollar global oil market. The conflict has turned a relatively open and smoothly functioning system into something weaponized and fractured. Oil prices have resumed climbing, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively locked down.
Such a reordering would mean, at a minimum, higher energy prices and inflation. In the long term, it could shake the foundations of the dollar-based global economy and, with it, U.S. power. Past shocks have led to permanent changes, and there is little reason to think this one would be different.