The nuclear threat of gas

After telling Netanyahu not to strike South Pars again, Trump threatened to "massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field" if Iran attacks Qatar once more. The formulation is remarkable: he threatens to destroy a gas field shared by Iran and Qatar, meaning he threatens to destroy an ally's main source of wealth to punish an enemy.

South Pars/North Dome is the largest natural gas reserve on the planet. On the Iranian side, it feeds much of its domestic consumption and exports. On the Qatari side, it is the foundation of the LNG industry that made Qatar one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita. Qatar has already lost 17% of its export capacity from Iranian attacks on Ras Laffan. Destroying all of South Pars would have global energy consequences of a scale difficult to calculate.

The threat is likely deterrent rather than operational. But Trump posted it on Truth Social, which makes it declared policy. The world's largest natural gas reservoir is now, formally, a hostage in a negotiation between Washington and Tehran. Qatar, whose gas heats homes in Europe and powers industries in Asia, was not consulted. Qatar's foreign minister said "everyone knows who benefits from this war." It is the most diplomatically loaded sentence to come out of the Gulf in 20 days.