Oil just cracked $100 a barrel and the odds of a Fed rate hike by September have exploded from below 53% to 82% in a single week — and the bill for both lands on working Americans who are already paying $4 a gallon at the pump and 6.58% on a mortgage.

Here's the squeeze: the same central bank that kept rates too low for too long is now preparing to jack them up again, and the stated reason — inflation driven by energy costs — is a problem Washington's own foreign policy created. The U.S.-Iran tit-for-tat attacks that CNBC reports have sent Brent crude back to triple digits aren't an act of God. They're the predictable fallout of another overseas entanglement with no defined exit, no stated interest, and no end in sight. The Anchorage Daily News notes the 10-year Treasury yield has climbed from 3.97% before the Iran conflict began in late February to 4.7% now. That's a direct line from foreign intervention to your mortgage payment.

The numbers are stark. Fed funds futures now show a nearly 38% chance the Fed hikes rates as soon as next week — up from under 12% seven days ago, according to CME's FedWatch tool. The current range sits at 3.50% to 3.75%. Meanwhile, Freddie Mac reports the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 6.58%, the highest since last August. The 15-year rate climbed to 5.96%. Add hundreds of dollars a month to a family's housing cost, and you've choked out whatever purchasing power they had left.

CNBC framed the story around what investors are "preparing for" and what's pressuring the stock market — the Dow dropped 600 points, the Nasdaq shed nearly 3%. Larry Tentarelli of the Blue Chip Daily Trend Report called it a "perfect storm of headwinds." Notice whose storm gets the headline: Wall Street's. Meanwhile, the Anchorage Daily News at least tracked the mortgage damage, but buried the cause — the Iran conflict — deep in the piece, describing it passively as violence that "is threatening to worsen inflation," as though it arrived unbidden.

Then there's the labor market excuse. Jobless claims fell to 187,000 — the lowest since 1969, when the U.S. population was 60% of what it is now. Christopher Rupkey of FWDBONDS said the outlook shows "some signs of overheating," but added the key question: "for how long... if energy prices continue to spiral upward?" Translation: the Fed will use a tight labor market as cover to hike rates on working people, even as those same people get hammered by gas prices and mortgage costs that the Fed's own inaction and Washington's foreign adventurism helped create.

The pattern is plain. Central bank stagnation — sitting pat while inflation re-accelerates — lets asset managers reposition. Then the rate hike arrives after the damage is done, and the people who absorb it are the ones filling up a tank and trying to buy a house, not the ones moving bonds in advance. The Fed doesn't set mortgage rates directly, but its signals move the 10-year Treasury, and that rips straight through to every home loan in the country.

The open question isn't whether the Fed hikes. It's who pays for the lag. So far the answer is the same as always: you do.