For the Middle East, the war in Iran has been another tough lesson in how divisions and competition can yield brutal conflict. But for most of the world, the war has been a lesson in something else: the political pitfalls of energy dependence. When the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed in early March, choking off roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas, countries everywhere began to face spiking oil and gas prices. On March 24, the Philippines became the first state in the