Militarily, Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion has been an utter and unqualified success. Iran's military capacity has been reduced to a few goblins racing around in pickup trucks, launching drones, and frantically leaving the launch site before an American A-10 or Apache attack helicopter can fire them up. The problem of the Iranian theocracy is being addressed in classic American fashion, with the suitable application of high explosives.
Here's the catch: Any military campaign in that oil-rich part of the world is going to have an adverse effect on oil prices. That's inescapable, and the Trump administration knew that there would be a short-term spike in oil prices, but now, Senate Democrats are blaming the operation for rising oil prices - while ignoring that even after the short-term spike, prices are still lower than they were during the Biden administration.
An editorial at Issues & Insights has the numbers.
The New York Times recently ran a piece titled “Democrats Hammer Trump on ‘Energy Affordability’ as Iran War Continues.”
Our headline above is a more accurate description of what’s going on, because it is the Democrats – not Donald Trump – who have been and still are waging war on affordable energy.
The fawning Times article is based on a report from “top Senate Democrats” that “accused the Trump administration of waging a ‘war on energy affordability’ by canceling hundreds of clean energy projects even before the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran — strikes which have sent energy costs higher.”
But the Times conveniently leaves out the facts, because those would bulldoze the Democrats’ talking points.
One would think that by now, the Democrats would be accustomed to having their talking points bulldozed. Here's that bulldozing:
For example, Democrats and the mainstream press have been screaming about the price of crude oil since the attacks on Iran started. While oil prices did rise sharply, they are still well below the peaks they reached under Joe Biden — peaks that would have been higher still had Biden not been draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to hold them down. (The current price is also below where it was almost the entire time Barack Obama was president.)
Here's the graph:
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) March 27, 2026
The same applies to gasoline prices, which is a far more immediate and visible issue for most Americans:
Gasoline prices tell the same story. Yes, they’ve gone up recently, but they are nowhere near as high as they reached under Biden. And once the Iran conflict is settled, they will come right back down.
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) March 27, 2026
Noticing a trend here?
Read More: Only Legacy Media Could Miss the Iran War's Success
Energy Secretary Chris Wright Has Good News for People Concerned About Gas and Oil Prices
But the New York Times, a Democrat mouthpiece, isn't done lying yet:
Then there are the claims about “clean” energy in that report that are demonstrably false.
At one point, for example, it says that “Trump’s rotten legislation raised taxes on solar, wind, and battery projects, which are the most affordable sources of electricity.”
Yet, the more heavily a state relies on “clean energy,” the higher its electricity costs, as a detailed report from the Heritage Foundation made clear.
So, as usual, we can count on a leftist legacy media outlet to dissemble on any issue involving anything the Trump administration does.
Granted, oil is an international commodity. The market price of oil will still be affected by events in the Middle East, regardless of American domestic supplies, but the more America produces, the more prices are stabilized, and the more our own national consumption is reliable and stable - a lesson that's apparently lost on California's impeccably coiffed Governor Gavin Newsom.
Here's the other part of this issue: While, yes, the ongoing Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion is causing this short-term spike, think for a moment of the possibility of total success in this matter, total success being defined as a renewed, free, democratic Iran - or Persia, if you like. Think for a moment of a nation that has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, free, not only of the theocratic barbarians that run the country now, but free as well of the sanctions that have a cork in Iran's fuel exports. Imagine a new, free Iran with huge oil and natural gas reserves, and full and unfettered access to world energy markets. Imagine a stable, civilized Iran that isn't impoverishing its own people in favor of sending weapons, ammo, and supplies to Islamic terror groups throughout the region.
Best of all, imagine a Middle East without the vicious barbarians that have had Iran under their sandals since 1979, a more stable, peaceful Middle East. Resolving the problem that is Iran won't solve every problem in the Middle East; the hateful Taliban are still in charge in Afghanistan, and even if the Iranian theocracy falls, remnants of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State will still be running around causing trouble. But the elephant in the room will be gone.
In the meantime, Democrats are, once more, spreading panic over a non-issue. That's something in American politics that, sadly, we can rely on utterly.
