{"id":542428,"date":"2026-03-15T18:18:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T18:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/542428\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T18:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T18:18:20","slug":"as-oil-prices-spike-is-this-the-week-trump-declares-victory-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/542428\/","title":{"rendered":"As oil prices spike, is this the week Trump declares victory in Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael<\/p>\n

March 16, 2026 \u2014 5:00am<\/p>\n

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Maryland: Janet Stolba keeps a close eye on petrol prices. \u201cThese two gas stations used to be the cheapest gas around, and everybody came,\u201d she says as she fills up near a major intersection in Hyattsville, Maryland.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now they\u2019re exactly equal with everyone else, and there\u2019s nothing that\u2019s cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, she is paying $US3.60 a gallon ($1.36 a litre); she says it was $US2.87 the other day. And she knows what\u2019s to blame. \u201cThe war is tying up the ships, and the ships have the oil, and so here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JanetJanet Stolba pumps gas in Hyattsville, Maryland.Michael Koziol<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, motorists who spoke with this masthead said much the same thing \u2013 they don\u2019t like paying more for fuel, and they don\u2019t understand why Donald Trump is dropping bombs on Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery morning I\u2019m afraid of what I might see in the paper. I\u2019m totally opposed to it,\u201d says Sheena Morrison, 60, who has driven from Baltimore to visit her mother.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Middle<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not much we can do since this administration has taken it upon itself to wage war on a country that has not been a threat to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stolba, 83, blames Trump\u2019s ego. \u201cI don\u2019t believe anything he says. It\u2019s all about him,\u201d she says. \u201cWhatever we\u2019re doing \u2013 saving money or making money, or not saving money or not making money \u2013 it\u2019s because that man wants everything for himself. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf he could, he would buy every country in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marvin, who won\u2019t say his last name because he\u2019s a federal government employee, is also dubious. \u201cIf the goal is American interests, then the focus should be in America,\u201d he says. He can handle the higher costs but worries about those who can\u2019t. \u201cFor people who live within this community, any jump in gas is pretty significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cEvery\u201cEvery morning I\u2019m afraid of what I might see in the paper,\u201d Sheena Morrison says of the war. \u201cI\u2019m totally opposed to it.\u201dMichael Koziol<\/p>\n

As the US and Israeli campaign in Iran enters its third week, and the price of oil hits $US100 a barrel, people like Janet, Sheena and Marvin reflect a large proportion \u2013 though not necessarily an outright majority \u2013 of American public opinion.<\/p>\n

Polls have consistently shown Americans are sceptical about the country\u2019s largest military undertaking in two decades, despite the threat the Iranian regime has long posed. When the University of Maryland asked voters in early February whether they would support the US initiating an attack on Iran, 21 per cent said yes, 49 per cent opposed it and 30 per cent were unsure.<\/p>\n

A Quinnipiac University poll of 1000 voters taken a week after the strikes started found 53 per cent opposed the military action, while 40 per cent backed it. \u201cVoters are unenthusiastic about the air attack on Iran and there is overwhelming opposition to putting American troops on Iranian soil to fight a ground war,\u201d the university\u2019s polling analyst, Tim Malloy, said.<\/p>\n

The US is much less reliant on oil imports than it used to be, which offers some protection from price shocks<\/a>, and pump prices remain much lower than their peak in 2022. But in a country where cost of living is still the dominant issue for voters, petrol prices can be a barometer of political sentiment.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Vladimir<\/a><\/p>\n

The Trump administration is working with allies to put more oil on the market by releasing emergency stocks, and it\u2019s providing insurance for tankers to navigate the Strait of Hormuz (Trump says they should \u201cshow some guts\u201d). The US has also temporarily lifted sanctions<\/a> on Russian oil that is already at sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut none of those steps will stop prices for surging higher as long as transit remains blocked and oil production in the Gulf continues to be a target of Iranian drones,\u201d says Josh Lipsky, chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n

There are some signs Americans\u2019 scepticism about the war has abated as the US military pummels Iran\u2019s navy, missile stocks and weapons industry with overwhelming force. A Washington Post survey found the proportion of people who opposed the strikes fell from 52 per cent to 40 per cent in a week, although it asked a slightly different question the second time, which omitted Trump\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Reuters\/Ipsos polls found public opinion was unchanged, with 43 per cent against, 29 per cent in support and about a quarter of voters uncertain – essentially the same as the week before.<\/p>\n

Dan Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, says this partly reflects Trump\u2019s \u201cstrategic incoherence\u201d and his \u201ctotal failure to describe the campaign [and] the necessity of going to war to the American people\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA soldier of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guards an area targeted in US-Israeli attacks in Tehran.Getty<\/p>\n

Public opinion is also one of the few tools the decimated Iranian regime has left. The country\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, constantly highlights rising oil prices in his social media missives, and accuses Trump of being \u201cIsrael First\u201d rather than America First.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want Americans to look at their television sets and say: what\u2019s going on here?\u201d said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on Washington Week with The Atlantic. \u201cThey\u2019re hoping American public opinion is going to restrain these ambitions that Trump has.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president is dismissive of domestic scepticism about the war, even from parts of his base \u2013 he is fond of saying that he determines what \u201cAmerica First\u201d means, not anyone else. But he has acknowledged a level of disagreement even within the highest ranks of his administration.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump and his MAGA cap.Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance, who was mostly silent<\/a> when combat operations began, was \u201cphilosophically a little bit different than me\u201d, Trump said. \u201cI think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going [into Iran], but he was quite enthusiastic.\u201d Vance, asked about his views on Friday, said he wasn\u2019t going to canvass publicly what he advised the president in classified settings.<\/p>\n

And Trump has given mixed signals about his ambitions in Iran. When he announced the campaign in an eight-minute recorded video, he gave the impression it would be a long and arduous fight. He spoke of a \u201cmassive and ongoing operation\u201d to end 47 years of menacing by the regime.<\/p>\n

He told the Iranian people that when it was over, it would be easy for them to overthrow the government: \u201cIt will be yours to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now, he says regime change may not happen, noting it is difficult for Iranians to protest without weapons and in the face of brutal suppression from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t believe Israel would be able to continue the kind of campaign they\u2019re conducting in Iran without US participation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dan Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel.<\/p>\n

Trump doesn\u2019t want the new supreme leader<\/a>, Mojtaba Khamenei, in charge, but is open to some other regime insider taking control. He says he will know when it\u2019s time to end the war on instinct \u2013 \u201cwhen I feel it in my bones\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shapiro says it\u2019s time for Trump to end it now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the objectives are what his military leaders are telling us \u2013 degrade the missile capability, the navy, nuclear sites \u2013 that degradation of [Iran\u2019s] power projecting capabilities is significantly accomplished. You can always do more, but they\u2019ve been significantly weakened,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"T\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk is getting pulled into an extended conflict where you\u2019re running out of essentially targets that you\u2019re going to hit with aerial munitions but in the meantime, you\u2019re suffering what pain Iran can impose through the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and all the economic dislocation that causes.\u201d <\/p>\n

If Trump simply declares victory sometime this week or next, it does not mean Iran will agree. It could continue to fire what missiles it has left and continue to close the strait. \u201cBut that\u2019s going to leave us in a better position than if we get piled into something much more extended,\u201d says Shapiro.<\/p>\n

Israel has made clear it has more maximalist goals. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly said he was adding regime change to his list of goals while acknowledging it may not happen. But that is something most analysts say is difficult to impossible through airpower alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want more time,\u201d Shapiro says. \u201cThis would be a diverging of interest in terms of war aims. However, it ends when President Trump says it ends. I don\u2019t believe Israel would be able to continue the kind of campaign they\u2019re conducting in Iran without US participation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That leaves Iran in a precarious position, with a regime that survives but has been weakened \u2013 and, as Shapiro points out, has new motivation to keep enriching its uranium.<\/p>\n

The existential threat that Trump talked about eliminating \u201conce and for all\u201d would continue to exist \u2013 albeit less potent, for now. \u201cWars end messy,\u201d Shapiro says. \u201cYou rarely get everything you want.\u201d <\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Koziol<\/a> is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 16, 2026 \u2014 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-542428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}