It’s the oil prices, stupid: The West’s principles collapse when prices rise

 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-890392

Because as soon as oil prices began to spike, sending energy markets into panic, raising the cost of living, and threatening already shaky economies, the tone began to shift. Subtly at first. Then more openly. Calls for “restraint.” Appeals for “de-escalation.” Thinly veiled criticisms of the very operation that, days earlier, had been quietly endorsed or at least understood.

This is the uncomfortable truth that the past weeks have exposed. For all the lofty rhetoric about human rights, democracy, and standing up to evil, the West’s moral compass appears to be calibrated, above all, by the price per barrel.

Of course, governments must consider economic consequences. No responsible leader can ignore the impact of rising fuel costs on ordinary citizens. But there is a difference, an enormous, consequential difference, between weighing economic factors and allowing them to dictate one’s entire moral posture.

What we are witnessing now is the latter. It is the quiet recalibration of principles in the face of economic discomfort. It is the willingness to tolerate, excuse, or even indirectly empower a regime like Iran because confronting it has become inconvenient.