Michael Hudson : This time the U.S. attack on Iran will be for real – and for keeps

by Michael Hudson [3-24-2026, Tuesday].

(RAD: Michael Hudson is definitely not the only one who has been warning about the disaster awaiting us if the war of choice by Israel & the US against Iran continues. He is blunt about the intentions of the US & the ramifications. — RAD)

Michael Hudson is an American economist, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri (Kansas City), and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. Born on March 14, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois, he holds a Ph.D. in economics from New York University (1968), an M.A. from NYU (1963), and a B.A. in philology and history from the University of Chicago (1959).

He began his career as a balance-of-payments economist at Chase Manhattan Bank and later worked for The Hudson Institute. His research focuses on financial history, the evolution of debt, land tenure, and credit systems from ancient Sumerian times to the present. Since 1996, he has served as president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), where he has conducted influential work on financial bubbles, land policy, and international debt crises.

Hudson is known for his critical analysis of neoliberal economics, financialization, and the military-industrial complex, arguing that modern economic theory serves the interests of the financial elite. He has authored or edited over ten books, including Super-Imperialism and Killing the Host, and is a frequent speaker and commentator on global economic issues. His work has been translated into Japanese, Spanish, and Russian.

He has advised governments, central banks, and international organizations including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the U.S. and Canadian governments. Hudson also contributes to media outlets such as Democracy Now! and Naked Capitalism, and his lectures are widely available on YouTube.

First of all,the Strait of Hormuz has remained open. Iran is letting ships from India, Japan and other countries use it. So there is no need to “liberate” it. That’s not what the imminent U.S. attack is about. And it’s certainly not about Iran seeking an atomic “weapon of mass destruction.” That’s been the cover story to distract attention from the long-term U.S. plan that’s underlain its foreign policy for the past century.

The aim is to control Iran and the oil trade behind it – who can buy this oil and who can be denied access to oil and gas – and even more important, the export revenues from this oil trade.

This is the “final” conquest in the U.S. game to control and weaponize the world’s oil trade: To seize Iran’s oil and turn it over to either a client regime (Trump has said that he wants to select the new ruler personally) or to U.S. companies – and then to use the chaos in the Arab OPEC countries to impose the same control over them.

I think that this Friday there’s not going to be a replay of the threat and recover game that’s been roiling the financial markets, followed by happy-face talk of peace that led to a recover of over 1,000 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average at one point on Monday. It looks like it will be a real invasion. – not of Hormuz, which would be suicidal, but a ground attack on Iran combined with an air attack on its energy resources.

Iran will retaliate by attacking the economies and energy infrastructure of the Arab OPEC states that backed the U.S. invasion and let the U.S. military use its bases in their sheikdoms.

THE U.S. ATTACK HAS BEEN PLANNED LONG BEFORE 2003 when Wesley Clark explained it. Trump made it obvious that this “final solution” was imminent on February 28, when the Omani mediator said that Iran had, amazingly, agreed to the U.S. demand that Iran turn over its stock of refined uranium.

This threat of peace caused a crisis for the U.S. military. The aim never has had anything to do with Iranian refinement of uranium. That always has been only a cover story. Even the demand that Iran dismantle its missiles has been a cover story.

There is nothing that Iran can do that will satisfy U.S. planners except for a regime change that is approved by the United States, installing an Iranian “Yeltsin”-type figure to let U.S. oil companies come in and regain control of Iran’s oil resources.

The U.S. aim is to make the world entirely dependent on oil under its direct control – not only the oil facilities itself, but the governments of oil-exporting nations.

The aim is to give U.S. strategists the ability to turn off the power, electricity, gas, fertilizer, lighting and heating of countries that resist U.S. policies and to take over their economy by controlling a choke point on its access to energy.

And beyond the oil itself, the export revenues from oil production must be lent to the United States in the form of government and corporate bonds or stocks, but not direct ownership in any other firm. These were the terms of the 1974 OPEC settlement with U.S. officials. (RAD: Understand how the petrodollar works)

U.S. planners realize that this will cause a world depression as Iran will retaliate against U.S. bases in the Arab sheikdoms, and perhaps wipe out their ruling families. Whatever destruction it wreaks on OPEC is a catalyst for the U.S. power grab, because it will come in and take these oil resources for themselves as well. The U.S. will control all the world’s major oil export resources outside of Russia.

It can then claim to have rescued the world economy from Iran’s destruction – while using its control of oil as an economic weapon to wield against countries that resist acquiescing in U.S. foreign policy, especially its demands for economic and trade and monetary sanctions against Russia and China.

European and Asian countries are saying, “This is not our war.” But it IS their war. The US intends to isolate all oil facilities throughout the world that it cannot control.

≈ The rest of the world seems to have cognitive dissonance regarding the enormous scale – and outright evil – of this long-term U.S. plan to use oil as a lever to control the entire world economy through its dependence on oil and gas (and helium). Other countries can’t imagine such boldness. It’s like the late 1930s when the world couldn’t imagine Hitler’s plan. By not acting to stop it, they are subjecting themselves to financial chaos as the world oil trade is disrupted for at least the rest of this year.

I continue to be amazed that the vested interests with hundreds of billions of their own dollars at stake don’t intervene to stop Trump. Even back in the Vietnam War, Wall Street had many leaders (such as Chase Manhattan’s George Champion) saying that the Vietnam War was bad – because it was “fiscally irresponsible.” This is not what you hear from Jamie Diamond et al. today.

And I met with generals who opposed the war in the mid 1970s, not what you would see today. There’s just a numbness from Wall Street to the army – and the same in all other countries, as if the US/Iran war will not engulf their own economies and society.

It’s all so clear how this will work out – but for most governments, the obvious is so terrible that it has become unthinkable.

Michael Hudson: Iran’s Grand Plan to End U.S. Presence in the Middle East [3-9-2026]

The Final Collapse of the US Empire Has Begun – Richard Wolff, Michael Hudson, Nima Alkhorshid [9-15-2025]

Michael Hudson: Eurasian World Order – New Global Governance [9-2-2025]