Trump keeps talking about "securing the oil" in Syria. Behind that phrase is two ideas:
1. A not very strategic but understandable US plan to deny the oil to both Assad and ISIS.
2. Trump's insane fantasy that the US can take the oil for itself. telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/2…
1. A not very strategic but understandable US plan to deny the oil to both Assad and ISIS.
2. Trump's insane fantasy that the US can take the oil for itself. telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/2…
The oil would be a big prize for either ISIS or Assad.
ISIS once made $40m/month from oil and the money could help fund the jihadists' resurgence. Assad could use the money to rebuild his shattered state and ease his own dependence on smuggled Iranianian oil.
ISIS once made $40m/month from oil and the money could help fund the jihadists' resurgence. Assad could use the money to rebuild his shattered state and ease his own dependence on smuggled Iranianian oil.
So you can see why the US would want to keep it out of their hands.
Denying it to ISIS would be in service of the strategic goal of keeping the jihadists down. Denying it to Assad makes less sense strategically but I guess gives the US a little leverage.
Denying it to ISIS would be in service of the strategic goal of keeping the jihadists down. Denying it to Assad makes less sense strategically but I guess gives the US a little leverage.
Then there is Trump's pipe dream of "taking the oil" for America's benefit, a fantasy he's been nursing for years.
Long before he was president he talked about how the US should be take Iraq's oil as a price for overthrowing Saddam.
Long before he was president he talked about how the US should be take Iraq's oil as a price for overthrowing Saddam.
It's simultaneously a very 1970s mindset - when Middle East oil was seen as the world's singlemost strategic asset - and a throwback to ideas from the 1700s and earlier about wartime plunder.
It would be totally illegal for the US to just take Syria's oil.
But even if it wasn't, it just doesn't make that much sense. Syria's oil fields are tiny compared to America's. No US oil company is going to have any interest in rooting around amid war in Deir Ezzor.
But even if it wasn't, it just doesn't make that much sense. Syria's oil fields are tiny compared to America's. No US oil company is going to have any interest in rooting around amid war in Deir Ezzor.
It seems the US is going to go ahead with the first plan. Trump is still holding onto the fantasy of the second.
"We've secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of US troops will remain in the area...we'll be deciding what we're going to do with it in the future."
"We've secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of US troops will remain in the area...we'll be deciding what we're going to do with it in the future."
