Oil companies report sky-high profits thanks to wartime crude prices

If it's what they wanted it's very odd that the winning candidate's platform swore no new wars. It's also weird that his approval rating is bouncing around at the lowest level ever recorded as he's prosecuting a war that his constituents want.

Which isn't entirely a bad thing. The issues facing the world and the country are so much bigger than they used to be 200 years ago and aren't getting smaller. They require an entire team of educated people to fix. If only they weren't so corrupt. But since power corrupts, I'm not sure that's something that's even fixable at longer timescales.

Because this admin has only one person who calls the shots, it was started because he wanted it. Reports indicate that Bibi played on his ego, and recent "success" in Venezuela gave the illusion that "regime change" was easy, as well as an apparent long time hatred for Iran were the drivers here.

It is mind boggling that tens of millions of people continue to say "This is fine."

The war with Iran right now is the culmination of the war in Gaza. These are two battlefields in a larger conflict - the belligerents are Iran and its proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis) versus everyone else in the region.

Iran escalated the conflict (which previously was only simmering and involved occasional missile attacks on Israel) with the 10/7 attacks in response to Saudi Arabia and other regional powers normalizing relations with Israel. They did not properly account for Israel being led by warmongering right-wingers, nor did they account for the US being led by a geriatric man who seems like he might have dementia. They assumed, incorrectly, that the US would continue to be led by reasonable people who weighed the risks of closing the Strait of Hormuz (earthshattering) against the risks of continued Iranian-funded terrorism in the region (Israel gets more bad press and has to keep spending money on missile defense).

The goals of this war, in a geopolitical sense, are to force Iran to abandon its proxies and to lead to regime change in Iran. The fact that the current US administration is made up of morons who should never been placed in power doesn't change that. The goals of any war are best explained by geopolitical factors and not whoever is in charge, because geopolitical factors are real and enduring while presidents and kings change often.

If anything, Trump's only pressing need at the moment is to get oil prices down so that the GOP isn't completely blown out in the midterms by $6/gal gas prices. Oil companies making money is not the cornerstone of US foreign policy, no matter how often people like citing it.

This isn't going to happen because Hormuz is likely to be closed for years to come. Eventually domestic economic pressure will force Iran to the negotiating table; the regime needs to sell oil almost as bad as Trump needs low gas prices. God willing all of the parties involved will have better leadership by then.

However, the US oil industry is not supply constrained by the war. They can still produce as much oil as ever. It's only their competitors in the middle east that are affected.

They reduces the global supply of oil and increases demand for US oil. That's why their profits are up.