I don't know. Europe had the opportunity to make themselves energy independent multiple times; instead they doubled down on Russian oil, and in response to the latest invasion, they instead doubled down on Qatar natural gas...

Germany spent enough on solar to have nuclear power for winter heating and instead they get nearly nothing from it when energy (note I said Energy not Electricity) demand is the highest: winter heating.

Now, if they had put that solar in North Africa and ran cables, sure, but they didn't. Or if they did Drake's landing solar storage, that would also work. But they spent a fortune only to still be completely dependent on fossil fuels and are destroying the economic base because of the cost.

In the long term solutions will be found, but in the short term they can gain an enormous bargaining chip. If food prices double because we've burnt the last drop from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the administration will give them just about anything they want to avoid utter political destruction.

The game theoretic definition of a threat is something that harms you, but harms them so much that they will avoid forcing you to trigger the threat. It's a different matrix from the Prisoner's Dilemma, but still leaves you guessing about the personality of your opponent. The personality of Iran seems reasonably consistent. The US, less so.