Introduction

In my last essay I explained there are 4 primary lenses through which to view our overshoot predicament. I argued that the CACTUS lens (Complexity Accelerated Collapse of a Thermodynamically Unsustainable System) provides the clearest view of what to expect and what we should do.

Unfortunately, what US leaders have decided to do in Iran is the opposite of what CACTUS prescribes, which means we should expect the time to collapse to be shorter now than it was a week ago.

Explanations given by US leaders for why they attacked Iran have been muddled, fluid, and unconvincing. They include:

• nuclear weapons need to be obliterated again
• conventional missiles threaten nuclear armed Israel
• Iran supports people defending their own land (aka terrorists)
• protecting protesters harmed by the US attack on Iran’s currency
• regime change
• pre-empting an attack on US

Counter explanations from justifiably skeptical journalists and analysts are also varied including:

• Israel influence on US politics to achieve regional power goals
• Epstein distraction
• Evangelical Christians believe middle east conflict required for Jesus to return
• hatred of Muslims and/or Arabs
• revenge for American embassy hostages
• Iranian theocratic regime is evil and not supported by most citizens

Each of these explanations no doubt motivates different groups, however none of them are the reason the US attacked Iran.

In this essay I explain the real reason US leaders attacked Iran, why they are lying to us, and why, as CACTUS explains, the US has made things worse for all countries, including themselves.

My explanation does not require US leaders to have extraordinary awareness or intelligence, nor to have rare defective denial genes, and I assume US leaders are mostly good people trying to do the right thing for their citizens, which increases the probability that I am correct.

Risks

The risks US leaders have taken by starting a war with Iran are extraordinarily high. I think they know this. Therefore, their reason for attacking Iran must be existential.

Iran is a much tougher adversary than other countries the US has fought like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Venezuela. Iran is a large technologically advanced country with 90 million people fiercely proud of their independence. Their geography is mountainous and challenging to attack. They have expected an attack from the US and have been preparing for a long time. Many Iranians are willing to die to defend their independence.

The global economy is fragile because the system requires growth to not collapse, limits have slowed growth, the debt we have used to force growth has grown to dangerous levels, and limits to growth are becoming stronger.

In response to being attacked by a much more powerful country, Iran is responding asymmetrically by harming the economies of the US and its allies.

The most significant thing Iran has done so far is to close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of global oil produced, and 40% of global oil imported, flows.

Also important, Iran has attacked Qatar forcing it to stop producing 20% of the world’s LNG, and significant quantities of fertilizer and other important materials.

CACTUS explains that a modest persistent degrowth of the economy is sufficient to trigger a cascading collapse of complexity and modernity.

The size of the economy is roughly proportional to oil consumption.  Closing the Strait of Hormuz for a period longer than importing countries have oil reserves would roughly reduce global GDP by 20%, which is more than sufficient to trigger an unrecoverable collapse, if Hormuz remains closed long enough.

It’s unlikely anyone accurately knows how long the strait can remain closed without triggering a collapse, however most countries on average have about 90 days of oil in storage, and so 120 days of closure is a reasonable guess.

Note that China is an exception and seems to have anticipated the US attack on Iran by stockpiling about 120 days of oil reserves.

Given that other critical materials like fertilizer, petrochemicals, aluminum, and food to feed middle east countries pass through the strait, and the extreme complexity of global supply chains, and the fragility of our financial bubbles, and the likelihood that some importing countries will not have 90 days of oil and LNG buffers, it is reasonable to assume 120 days is a best case and serious problems will begin before that.

We don’t know for how long Iran wants, or is able, to keep the strait closed. We don’t know if the US can force the strait to reopen, or how long it might take to repair any damage and return to normal operations.

We do know that cumulative damage is being done to the global economy every day the strait remains closed, and the risk of a collapse increases with time.

The US attack on Iran has other significant risks.

Projecting advanced military force a long way from home is expensive and difficult to sustain. Doubly so given recent US support for Ukraine, and the fact the US does not have the industrial capacity it once had.

This means there is a reasonable chance Iran can win simply by surviving and outlasting the US.

A US loss to Iran would be catastrophic for obvious geopolitical reasons. It’s hard to imagine the US would not escalate to nuclear weapons if faced with a loss, and even less hard to imagine if Israel felt its survival was at stake. A nuclear attack on Iran would create a significant risk of nuclear escalation from its allies China and Russia.

Lastly, there are many complex rivalries, hatreds, and interests among middle east countries, and the countries that depend on their oil. Escalation of the Iran war in unpredictable and uncontrollable directions is probable. We can see escalation is already starting.

In summary, by attacking Iran, the US has created extreme risks.

What could be worth these risks?

Certainly not the reasons given by US leaders.

Nor the alternative reasons given by observers.

US Motivation

US power today depends on a strong military, owning the world’s reserve currency, and having access to sufficient energy and materials.

The standard of living for US citizens, and the jobs of most US leaders, depend on sustaining US power.

The industrial capacity of China already far exceeds the US.  

The US military is stronger than the Chinese military, however China is using its superior industrial capacity to catch up.

Last month China announced it now intends to compete with the US for “global reserve currency status” and to become a “financial powerhouse”.

To retain its power, the US must defend its reserve currency, and to do so needs the world’s strongest military.

US military strength is dependent on many rare earth minerals, and China controls almost all of them.

Last year China demonstrated its willingness to withhold rare earth minerals exports in retaliation against US tariffs, and is now blocking many exports destined for US military applications.

The US is working to create alternate sources of rare earth minerals, but this is an expensive decade-ish project. Those of us with CACTUS awareness understand this plan for US self-sufficiency may never succeed.

Access to rare earth minerals is therefore an existential issue for the US.

China is the only source of rare earth minerals in the short term and the US needs leverage to force China to provide them.

China is the world’s largest importer of oil at about 12 million barrels a day.

Roughly half of this oil comes from countries the US controls like Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The other half comes from countries the US does not control like Russia and Iran.

The US attempted to get control of Russian oil via the Ukraine war, but that plan failed.

China imports 90% of Iran’s oil, which is about 1.5 million barrels a day, and pays with Chinese Renminbi.

Iran’s oil represents about 13% of China’s oil imports, and while not huge, is strategically important because the US does not control Iran, and because Iran accepts Renminbi as payment, and because China receives a price discount for being Iran’s largest and most reliable customer, and because depletion is making it difficult to find alternate sources of oil.

The reason the US accepted the extreme risks of attacking Iran is now clear.

To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.

The US aggression has been extreme, including killing 160 young schoolgirls without an apology, suggesting there is an urgency behind the US strategy.

The urgency comes from the dependence of stocks on flows. The US military has a reasonable stock of weapons, but they are being depleted faster than they are being replaced due to the demands of Ukraine, the complexity of US weapons, and the hollowing out of US industrial capacity. In addition, some weapons cannot be replaced until the rare earth minerals problem is solved.

So, the US has decided to go all in with the goal of pounding Iran into quick submission. As stated earlier, this creates a serious risk of nuclear escalation if Iran proves to be tough enough to take the beating and not submit.

Conclusion

Those of us that are overshoot aware and see through the Debt, Energy, Ecology, or CACTUS lenses know that we are facing limits to growth, and big changes are on the horizon.

We know there are much bigger forces in play beneath the surface of the rare earth minerals for oil story.

There are no doubt people in the US government whose job it is to understand the threats of non-renewable energy and mineral depletion, but I expect most US leaders are like 99.9% of all people and aggressively deny these threats exist.

The point is that a coherent story to explain the US attack on Iran does not require overshoot awareness, or even a deep understand of energy.

US leaders are just normal ignorant people in denial trying to do the best they can for their citizens.

The reason US leaders are lying to us about why they attacked Iran is now clear.

US leaders can’t possibly say that if China does not provide rare earth minerals the US military will be weak, and the US will lose reserve currency status, and the standard of living for Americans will fall 50+%, so we have to kill thousands of Iranians, and spend billions of dollars, and risk World War III, and risk collapsing the global economy, to force China to give them to us.

Notice that none of the 6 reasons US leaders have provided for attacking Iran, nor the 6 reasons pundits have provided, that I listed above, are even close to the real reason.

In addition, I follow closely about 20 geopolitical analysts, plus maybe another 20 less closely, all of which I trust have sufficient integrity to at least attempt to accurately report WHAT is going on, however none of these 40 people are even close to accurately explaining WHY the US attacked Iran.

None, not even close! How is this possible?

Notice that all 12 incorrect explanations have one thing in common. They all avoid discussing limits to growth, or non-renewable resource depletion, or scarcity, or bubbles, or living beyond our means.

Anything associated with overshoot is taboo because it is a too unpleasant reality for our brains to accept as explained by the MORT theory.

We are a uniquely smart species capable of understanding many complex topics, unless the topic is really unpleasant.

It’s an amazing phenomenon to observe and is why I started un-Denial.

As a final point I want to repeat a point I made in my last essay.

There is a significant cost to the fact that most leaders do not understand CACTUS. The attack on Iran, even in the best case of the war ending quickly, has done serious damage to the global economy. We are in the end stage of an advanced civilization, and damage does not heal well now. There are too many demands for maintenance and repair, and we don’t have the material wealth to address them all.

Every time we recklessly break something, as the US just did by attacking Iran, we reduce the time to collapse.

A wise species would find a way to spread awareness of CACTUS so that we can extend the time to collapse and use some of our remaining resources to improve the quality of life for the survivors and other species.

Achieving awareness is a challenge because even if CACTUS was explained to our leaders with compelling evidence, most would still deny CACTUS due to the human genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities as explained by Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory.

I proposed one promising idea for spreading CACTUS awareness in my last essay. Hopefully others reading this will come up with other ideas.

P.S. We now understand why good people like Tulsi Gabbard who campaigned against the war have been silent, and why Trump flip-flopped on war promises.

P.P.S. We now also understand why the US decapitated Venezuela.

In 2025 China imported about 600K barrels per day, representing 80% of Venezuela’s exported oil, in exchange for Renminbi or barter repayment of debt.

After the US kidnapped Venezuela’s president in January 2026, oil exported to China fell to 50K barrels per day or less.