Oil Approaches $100 as Middle East Tensions Weigh on Asian Markets

As crude oil approaches the psychologically significant $100-per-barrel threshold, the ancient calculus of geography and power reasserts itself — Middle East tensions reminding the world that modern economies remain tethered to a narrow strait and the decisions made near it. Asian markets, neither panicked nor reassured, have entered that familiar posture of watchful restraint, where investors price not what has happened, but what might. The event is less a crisis than a warning: energy markets are forward-looking instruments, and right now they are looking at something they do not like.