Petrol-Dollar Trap: Imperialist Decay & Rupture of Global Energy

Akhilesh Chandra Prabhakar |

 24 Mar 2026

Developments in West Asia may lead either to heightened inter-imperialist rivalry or to the emergence of alternative forms of cooperation and organisation.

Image Courtesy: creativecommons.org

The world stands on the brink of a third world war. The terrifying threat of nuclear war looms large. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Eight decades after the cataclysm of the Second World War—a systemic upheaval that claimed tens of millions of lives—the contemporary world once again stands on the edge of a fresh imperialist conflagration.

The "international law" of the post-WWII era has been exposed as a hollow bourgeois fiction. The imperialist "quad" (the US, the UK, France, and the Zionist entity, Israel) operates as a global gendarme, disregarding the UN framework to impose a unipolar dictatorship. Behind this shell lies the true engine of destruction: monopoly capital and the military-industrial complex. The dictatorship of the dollar, backed by oil and steel, demands perpetual war to sustain its terminal accumulation.

Within this current historical event, “four major contradictions” have emerged and intensified across the globe. So, this is not an accidental drift into disorder, but the sharpening of structural contradictions inherent in the imperialist phase of capitalism. These contradictions among major imperialist powers can be seen as —

• Inter-Imperialist Rivalry: The escalating friction between the US and its European counterparts—most notably the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Turkey—reflects a fracturing of the Western alignment as these powers navigate competing interests for market dominance.
• The Metropole-Periphery Divide: The yawning chasm between the developed capitalist core and the Global South periphery continues to widen, driven by the mechanisms of neo-colonial extraction and the systematic subordination of developing economies.
• Ideological and Existential Conflict: The profound antagonism between US-led imperialist structures and the remaining socialist bastions—including China, Cuba, the DPRK aka North Korea, and Venezuela—remains a primary axis of global tension.
• The Fundamental Class Contradiction: Most pivotally, the internal struggle between capital and labour has reached a fever pitch within the nation-state framework, as the ruling class seeks to resolve systemic stagnation through the heightened exploitation of the proletariat.

In geopolitical terms, the growing militarisation of international relations—driven by US expansionist strategies and sustained through both direct and proxy interventions—has transformed West Asia into a theatre of prolonged devastation. The populations of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria continue to endure immense human suffering as warfare reorganises entire societies through destruction, displacement, and dispossession. This is not merely a regional crisis, it signals a broader instability within the global capitalist system.

The aggressive unilateralism associated with Donald Trump accelerated these dynamics, pushing global war toward a destructive stage. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US accounts for about 42% of global arms exports to 99 countries. The Trump administration, by pushing the world toward a third world war, has effectively opened a new avenue for profit-making for American arms industries.

Israel-West Asia Conflict

Israel, which has occupied nearly 90% of Palestinian territory, has been equipped with nuclear weapons by the US in order to maintain its dominance over the abundant oil and gas resources, gold, and other natural mineral wealth of the Gulf region. On the other hand, around 28 countries, including Iran and North Korea, have not recognised Israel as a sovereign state.

In the past, several wars have taken place between Israel and the Gulf countries, in which Israel emerged victorious. In the entire Gulf region, Iran remains the only country capable of challenging Israel. The US and Israel do not want Iran to emerge as a nuclear-armed state with the support of China and Russia. Meanwhile, Iran, China, and Russia are committed to the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

US Attack on Kharg Island

The US has made a grave mistake by attacking Iran-controlled Kharg Island. From this island, Iran exports around 90–95% of its daily oil. Nearly 80–90 % of Iran’s oil reserves are associated with Kharg Island, which also holds vast deposits of gold and other mineral resources.

Kharg Island is Iran’s largest oil export terminal, with a loading capacity of about 7 million barrels per day, although current exports are around 1.5 million barrels daily. At the same time, the movement of approximately 3.5 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz has already been disrupted. Global consumption (including China, India, Japan, South Korea) exceeding 105 million barrels per day on one hand, and oil prices exhibiting 50% around the $160/barrel on the other. (Source: International Markets. Ithaca: Cornell University Press).

Today, that struggle has moved from the oil field to the maritime chokepoint.

The Strait of Hormuz is a bottleneck for more than just fuel. It carries:

• 40% of the global fertiliser trade (essential for industrial agriculture).
• 85% of West Asian polyethylene.
• 25% of global helium supplies (critical for high-tech and semiconductor production).
• 30% of Oil and gas supplies to the million people

(Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). 2026. World Oil Transit Chokepoints Report. Washington, D.C.: EIA).

Israel’s Attacks on Energy Infrastructure

Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field (the field is indeed the largest gas reserve globally). Iran targeted Israel’s Haifa refinery. Qatar’s LNG infrastructure (including Ras Laffan) that supplies roughly 40% of global LNG, were also hit. Multiple Gulf refineries operated by US multinational corporations in Saudi Arab, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Jordan were attacked.

Reports that the US Navy has “withdrawn” from the Gulf and maintains no presence within 700 km is inaccurate. It maintains a significant presence through the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Jorden spend heavily on US security arrangements.

Global Impact of War

Since the outbreak of war against Iran on February 28, the global stock markets have suffered losses of approximately $6 trillion. Of this, nearly $2 trillion has been lost in the US stock market alone (Source: Sky News; TRT News; The Wall Street Journal; International Monetary etc)

Impact on India and China

India imports about 85–88% of its crude oil, and around 40-45 % comes from the Gulf region. Around 60% hotels and restaurants have been closed in India due to shortages of gas supply. China is also a major energy importer but has diversified supply routes. China is constructing pipeline links to Russia (e.g., Power of Siberia). While India has no direct pipeline link with Russia, Iran or any other oil countries, and heavily relies on tanker imports.

Thorium Discovery in China: Fact and Context

China has indeed invested heavily in thorium-based nuclear research, particularly molten salt reactors. Thorium is widely considered:

• More abundant than uranium
• Capable of producing less long-lived radioactive waste
• Potentially safer due to lower meltdown risks

However, reports that China has “confirmed over one million tonne of thorium discovery” should be treated cautiously. Thorium resources are globally abundant (not unique to China), and estimates depend on geological classification rather than confirmed economically extractable reserves. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, thorium technology remains experimental, with no large-scale commercial deployment yet.

The Energy Shock: Attacking the Working Class

Energy (particularly petroleum oil and gas) for newly industrialising countries, such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Eastern Africa and Eastern European countries, is a universal input. When the price of oil spikes, the cost of existence for the global proletariat follows. The projected jump to $200 per barrel threatens a global "stagflationary" spiral—where prices rise while the full-flagged economy falls.

This vulnerability is starkest in the periphery nations, like Vietnam and Pakistan, holding less than 20 days of reserves, which are being pushed toward total economic collapse. The IEA emergency release of 400 million barrels is a mere statistical band-aid, representing only four days of global appetite. This is a disruption of expanded reproduction.

Rising energy prices exert immediate pressure on everyday life. Increases in oil costs translate directly into higher prices for transport, food, and essential goods, disproportionately affecting working populations. The prospect of sustained price escalation raises the likelihood of a stagflationary environment, where inflation coexists with economic stagnation.

The impact is especially severe in the Global South, where limited reserves and fragile fiscal conditions heighten vulnerability. Countries with constrained energy buffers face mounting balance-of-payments pressures, currency instability, and potential social unrest. Emergency interventions by international agencies provide only temporary relief, failing to address underlying structural weaknesses.

Capitalists attempt to offset rising energy costs by squeezing labour—lowering real wages and intensifying exploitation. As Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg argued, the capitalist machine’s thirst for external resources makes it inherently violent; when those resources are constricted, the system turns its teeth inward on the working class.

Historically, such situations lead to intensified exploitation. In order to preserve profitability, capital responds by suppressing wages, reducing labour protections, and shifting the burden of crisis onto the working class. This pattern underscores the continued relevance of Luxemburg, who emphasised the expansionist and crisis-prone nature of capitalist accumulation.

Petrodollar System Under Strain

At the core of the present turmoil lies the question of monetary power. Since the 1970s, the global dominance of the US dollar has been closely linked to its central role in oil transactions. This arrangement—commonly described as the “petrodollar system”—has enabled the US to sustain large fiscal deficits while maintaining its global influence.

However, this system is increasingly under pressure from ‘BRICS’ - China and Russia. Efforts by emerging economies to conduct energy trade in alternative currencies, including the Chinese yuan and various local units, signal a gradual shift away from dollar dependence. Such developments challenge the foundations of US financial hegemony and suggest the emergence of a more fragmented monetary order.

As Egyptian economist Samir Amin observed, global capitalism is structured through unequal exchange, whereby value flows disproportionately from the periphery to the core. Any weakening of the petrodollar arrangement has the potential to disrupt this pattern, though it does not automatically guarantee a more equitable outcome.

Multipolar Realignments and Emerging Contradictions

The rise of alternative economic groupings, particularly BRICS, reflects an ongoing transition toward multipolarity. Initiatives aimed at creating independent financial mechanisms and reducing reliance on Western-dominated institutions point to a reconfiguration of global power relations.

Yet this transition is neither linear nor inherently progressive. Multipolarity may simply redistribute influence among competing centres rather than transform underlying structures. As American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein argued, periods of hegemonic decline are often characterised by turbulence, uncertainty, and conflict rather than orderly change.

Crisis, Transition, and Historical Choice

The brink of a third world war surrounding West Asian and Caribbean countries: Venezuela and Cuba, Ukraine, and Taiwan has exposed sharply the emerging contradictions among the inter-imperialist gangs: ‘the US vs. NATO’, and between ‘the US-led NATO and BRICS (particularly China and Russia)’ for changing the new multipolar global order or maintaining the current unipolar American order.

At this critical juncture, humanity confronts a fundamental choice. The erosion of dollar hegemony, the intensification of resource competition, and the growing instability of global systems are opening new historical possibilities. These developments may lead either to heightened inter-imperialist rivalry or to the emergence of alternative forms of cooperation and organisation.

The writer is an economist, academic, and author with over 25 years of experience across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. The views are personal.

 

Faiz in Cuba: A Revolutionary Poet’s Account and Why it Still Matters

Fatima Shahzad | 26 Mar 2026

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Faiz Ahmed Faiz, an iconic Pakistani communist poet, records the legacy of solidarity that the Cuban Revolution represents to all the oppressed peoples of the world.

 

Faiz Ahmad Faiz, 1983. Photo: Wiki Commons

It was in 1973 that Faiz Ahmed Faiz landed at the José Martí airport in Havana, and the first voice he heard was the echoes of Fidel Castro’s speech on the loudspeaker. The most renowned communist poet of Pakistan opened his travelogue by saying he has stepped into the country where people once accustomed to hunger, poverty and exploitation are building a new society that will be the beacon of hope for the oppressed of the world. This piece of writing also shows us Faiz as a political analyst – a comrade who took it upon himself to document a journey which shed light on the experience of the Cuban revolution for the people of his own country. His own words profoundly capture the task he set out to do;

“About Cuba, we had no clear image, no picture in our minds. We knew only that there were American gangsters there, and many bars and gambling dens … Then came the revolution. A strange feeling arose – that in this distant, unknown island, a peculiar flame has been lit, the light of which begins to dazzle the eyes of Russia and America, and you and me. You too must have wondered what this flame is and why. Last month I had the opportunity to see the sparks of this fire with my own eyes and to feel its warmth in my own body.”

The land where everyone sings

The travelogue is also a documentation of people’s history and the flow of writing is chronological. In 1959, Faiz wrote that Cuba was a whisper, a footnote in newspapers owned by men who called revolutionaries bandits. It was not a nation but a plantation where two-thirds of the land was owned by just 8% of the landowners. The United Fruit Company and American corporations controlled vast stretches of the most fertile soil. Peasants tilled the land that was never theirs, their labor feeding the profits that flowed North. Illiteracy stood at over 40%, with entire villages without schools, where no one could read or write. This was the Cuba that the revolution inherited, a US colony in all but name headed by the military dictator Batista.

Faiz goes on to narrate the story of Fidel Castro which is layered in deep emotion. It is impossible to ignore that the events of the struggle in Cuba that are mentioned, evoke memories of the 1968-1969 revolutionary uprising in Pakistan which toppled the military dictatorship of Ayub Khan. Upon reading Fidel’s account of Moncada – of young revolutionaries slaughtered after attacking a barracks, of comrades tortured but refusing to betray – he recognized a familiar spirit. Just five years earlier, he had witnessed Pakistani students in Rawalpindi, worker-student protests burning police stations, and peasants in Hashtnagar taking up arms. The names and geography were different, but the courage was the same. In Cuba’s martyrs, Faiz saw the unfulfilled promises of Pakistan’s own revolution. In Fidel’s defiant words, “history will absolve me”, he heard an echo of  every young revolutionary that had fallen, from Asia to Latin America.

The words of Fidel struck the poet so deeply, that he ended up translating the entire speech into Urdu for the readers, instead of summarizing it in his own words. Faiz then turns his attention to the achievements of the Cuban Revolution he saw at the time. The Agrarian Reform Law broke the estates and the land was redistributed amongst the peasantry. Clinics were built in every district and preventive care reached villages that had never seen a doctor. In his beautiful prose, Faiz describes the conversion of the Moncada Barracks into a school. Former military installations were being turned into classrooms and education was made completely free, from primary schools through university. Illiteracy had been reduced to just 3% within 14 years of the revolution’s victory. Faiz contrasts this to pre-revolutionary times by observing that “Now, anywhere you go in Cuba, from one end to the other, you will see schools.”

Faiz concludes this section with the experience he found most unforgettable about the Cuban Revolution: how there is no distinction between the government and the people of Cuba. He recounts that in his exchanges with ordinary Cubans in the streets, fields, factories and campuses, the leaders are talked about by their first names – as if everyone carries Fidel, Che, Celia and others in their everyday lives like they know them. The leaders labored and struggled with the people, through crisis and hardship to build socialism. The darkness that engulfed Cuba under direct US-backed dictatorship is lifted by the melodies, arts and music hummed by a nation that stood up for its revolutionary ideals. Joy emanates from the pages as Faiz writes, “Here, everyone sings.”

The debt we owe to humanity

Towards the end of the travelogue, we are presented with the threats and pressure that US imperialism is continuing to exert upon Cuba to undermine the revolutionary project. Faiz was writing this at a time when Cuba was being embargoed and had already triumphed against US interventions such as the Bay of Pigs. He cut through Cold War propaganda by stating clearly what the bourgeois historians deem the “Cuban missile Crisis” was nothing but a defense of sovereignty by the Cuban people in the face of foreign aggression by former colonizers. This stranglehold of Cuba at the hand of imperialism is seen clearly today by the unilateral sanctions, blockades, and threats that the United States makes against it. Faiz understood the impacts of these counter revolutionary attempts and wrote, “Revolution is not a luxury, it is a class war. And in war, there are wounds.”

In 2005, Pakistan was devastated by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake which claimed over 73,000 lives and left millions homeless. The world pledged aid but Cuba’s response was unlike any other. This country 13,000 kilometers away, under a punishing US blockade, did not even wait for diplomatic formalities or political gain. Within a week, the first Cuban medical brigade landed in Rawalpindi, with surgical kits and field hospitals. What followed was the largest medical mission in history of Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Brigade. Over the next seven months, more than 2,400 Cuban medical personnel would serve in Pakistan. They established 32 field hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir. As other international teams left, the Cubans stayed and went to affected villages without roads that the world had forgotten. Experts warned of a second wave of deaths from disease exposure. However, that wave never came due to the tireless efforts of Cuban doctors.

Once again in 2006, Fidel Castro made yet another gesture of solidarity to the people of Pakistan. Cuba would provide scholarships for Pakistani students to study medicine free of cost. To date, approximately 1000 Pakistani doctors have graduated from Cuban universities, having been trained to serve their communities often in the same neglected regions where Cuban doctors first worked. Cuba has welcomed Pakistan’s Health Minister in 2025 to observe the healthcare infrastructure firsthand. Even last year, three students from rural Punjab were enrolled with full scholarships in Cuban universities to continue this program. History stands as proof of Faiz’s words half a century since he wrote: Cuba’s revolution was never just about Cubans, but about the dignity of all of the oppressed.

We must ask ourselves whether we have given the same support to Cuba as it faces fuel shortages and blackouts due to the US oil embargo. What Cuba gave to Pakistan was aid without conditions, in stark contrast to the structural adjustment programs that institutions like the IMF place upon countries like ours which cut public spending and pull us deeper into debt. Cuba sent doctors to save the lives of millions of Pakistani citizens. The United States sponsors wars that have killed and displaced millions in the region. What we owe to Cuba is thus a debt to humanity itself. I want to end with this lesser known poem by Faiz which he recited in an evening in honor of Cuba:

“Yesterday 

You had been the voice for a blooming island

If not more, you were the leader of some 7 million people

 

Today

Millions more in China stand shoulder to shoulder with you

And thousands of tongues pay homage in your name

 

Today

You are the voice of three continents

You have been inscribed in history as an eternal call

You are for the ages and generations to come,

You have bestowed the grace of struggle upon enslaved peoples

In every era, you are the harbinger of spring

Which despite hardships, will always mark the rights of humanity.”

Fatima Shahzad is the general secretary of Progressive Students Federation (PrSF), an organizer with Socialist Reading Group (SRG), and an artist from Pakistan.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

 

Italy Referendum: Millions Defeat Meloni’s Judiciary Reform Plans

Ana Vračar | 25 Mar 2026

As many as 15 million people rejected Giorgia Meloni’s reforms aiming to erode separation of powers at March 22-23 referendum.

Protest ahead of March 22-23 referendum in Italy. Source: Cambiare Rotta/Facebook

More than 15 million people defeated Giorgia Meloni’s intention to reform the judiciary and erode the separation of powers by voting “NO” at a referendum on March 22-23. With almost 60% of eligible voters participating, the outcome has sent waves across the political landscape – and marked an enormous victory for social movements, trade unions, and youth associations that have built resistance to Meloni’s repressive agenda over the past years.

The far-right administration wanted to introduce constitutional changes that would increase government control over the judiciary, under the pretext of an inefficient magistrature slowing down legal processes. The entire state apparatus, including Italy’s biggest media houses, was mobilized to ensure the reform would pass – and failed.

 

According to Giuliano Granato from the left party Potere al Popolo, the referendum’s high participation is a breakthrough in itself. In the weeks leading up to the vote, students found ways to bypass bureaucratic and economic obstacles that would have prevented them from voting away from home, while others traveled literally across the world to participate.

“This is important, on the one hand, because many people wanted to take action on the issue at hand,” Granato told Peoples Dispatch. “But many also voted because they saw it as an opportunity to send a political message.”

 

All the layers of a “no”

For “yes” votes, the political message was pretty straightforward: confirmation of the right-wing government’s mandate and more space to implement its program. For “no” votes, however, the meaning should be analyzed through multiple layers, Granato emphasizes. The first “no,” he points out, was in defense of the constitution – a progressive constitution forged after the defeat of fascism with participation from those who took part in the resistance.

 

The “no” was also a refutation of the government in general, Potere al Popolo and other left organizations insist. “We believe,” Granato says of the mass vote against, “this has acted as a catalyst for much broader discontent that traditional political opposition couldn’t adequately channel.”

The referendum numbers surpass the voting base of traditional center and center-left parties, indicating many voters who usually abstain took part. Granato suggests this should be interpreted in the context that, due to Italy’s political landscape – where options from right to center-left essentially run on the same economic premises – people usually feel their vote does not change anything. In this case, it was different. “People knew their vote would count,” he points out.

 

This was one of the results of a highly polarized campaign, reinforced by uncertain polls up until the very end. Even the day before the referendum began, Granato notes, one could not predict which way the vote would swing. “People participate when they feel their input matters. When they think it makes no difference, they stay at home.”

The “no” was also a rejection of anti-worker policies, as demonstrated by trade unions’ participation in the building of a campaign for a “social ‘no.’” According to the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), the result “sends a strong signal of change and struggle that should be channeled into efforts to protect living and working conditions, as well as getting Italy out of wars and demanding the dismissal of the Meloni government.”

 

Opposition to war and militarization is another layer to the referendum’s results, stemming not only from massive mobilization in solidarity with Palestine that brought Italy to a halt three times during the genocide, but also from opposition to the administration’s silence and servility toward illegal attacks launched by the Trump and Netanyahu governments – including in Iran and Lebanon, but also Venezuela and Cuba.

 

“And this isn’t just an ethical ‘no,’” Granato adds. “It’s a ‘no’ with immediate material consequences for Italy, since the country is already hard-hit by inflation [stemming from these assaults]. Fuel prices have already risen, along with utility bills and the cost of essential supplies.”

 

Generation Gaza is alert and active

In this context, Potere al Popolo, USB, student associations Cambiare Rotta, CAU and OSA, and many more took to the streets across dozens of cities immediately after the results were announced, demanding the Meloni government resign. While the administration has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to ignore popular demands and is expected to do so in this case as well, these organizations intend to seize the referendum’s momentum and build the transformative power Italy needs.

This includes, as Granato details, fighting for radical change in labor and living conditions, including living wages and safe working conditions for all workers, shaping a true industrial strategy oriented toward the wellbeing of the majority rather than wealthy industrialists and corporations, and building energy sovereignty. Finally, it includes introducing a different foreign policy independent of NATO and US interests and rooted in global cooperation and solidarity.

The high participation of young voters – with around 58% of this population group rejecting Meloni’s proposals – gives hope that this battle can be won. “Generation Gaza” in Italy is “alert and active,” Granato says – and together with other progressive forces, it will not give in to the far right.

 

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch