Trump Abandons Kurds in Syria: Wait, Back to Guard and Protect Syrian Oil Fields

1939 Award Winning Song: “We're Off to See the Wizard”

(2019 Trump Version: “We're Off to Guard the Oil”)

Simple and Direct, Mr. Trump

Historical reflection: George W. Bush takes office in 2001, and his plans were about anything except oil even those it was in past back in Texas. 

But, it was soon revealed that the first thing Vice President Dick Cheney did at the very first meeting of the Bush cabinet after he took office was to pass around a map of Iraq showing its oil reserves divided up between major United States oil companies.

That was in February of 2001, only months before the attacks of 9/11, and more than two years before the first American units would cross the Kuwait border in the invasion of Iraq in the first Gulf War.

Oil had nothing to do with that, so we were told. Our hands were clean. Our motives were pure. Only 9/11 revenge and stop Saddam’s WMD deployment.

But, one guy even back then knew better: Donald J. Trump tweeted in 2013 after we had left Iraq: “I still can’t believe we left Iraq without the oil. It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils.”

Then Trump said at a commander in chief forum in New York in September 2016 during the campaign with Hillary Clinton sponsored by NBC on that subject: “Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: take the oil.”

Axios reported last year that Trump again brought up Iraq’s oil in a 2017 meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi when he suddenly blurted out:  “So what are we going to do about the oil?”

Al-Abadi replied, “What do you mean?”

Trump said: “Well, we did a lot, we did a lot over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking about the oil.”

Al-Abadi, explaining as if talking to a small child or very large idiot voice, reportedly responded: “Well, you know Mr. President, we work very closely with a lot of American companies and American energy companies have interests in our country.”

Trump is at it again. Now with more than campaign rhetoric or casual asides like when he said of Syria’s oil during remarks at the White House while announcing the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: “We have taken it and secured it.” 

Background on that: Trump moved about 1,000 troops out of northern Syria so Turkey could invade the region and create a so-called “buffer zone.” 

But, then Trump said he was moving about 900 back into northeastern Syria: “To secure the oil. We may have to fight for the oil. It’s OK. Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in which case they have a hell of a fight. But there’s massive amounts of oil. What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly not like Iraq fight and leave without any oil.”

Former military commanders and international law experts agree that taking oil from Syria or anywhere else violates the Geneva Conventions.

“WHAT ARE WE BECOMING … PIRATES? If ISIS is defeated we lack Congressional authority to stay. The oil belongs to Syria,” Gen. Barry McCaffrey (Army Ret.) tweeted.

“Oil, like it or not, is owned by the Syrian state,” said Brett McGurk, Trump’s former top official in the war against ISIS. McGurk continued: “Maybe there are new lawyers now, but it was just illegal for an American company to go and seize and exploit these assets.”

According to The New York Times, McGurk said that Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson (former ExxonMobil CEO), had studied the issue and concluded there was no practical way for the United States to monetize its control over oil-rich areas.

Trump is going to discover that there are other interests who have a voice in what happens to the oil beneath the sands of the Middle East. He is dreaming if he thinks 900 American soldiers can protect the oil fields of northeastern Syria.

In The New Yorker Robin Wright  writes that the Syrian oil field production is already off significantly, adding: “At its peak, Syria produced less than four hundred thousand barrels a day, which generated about a quarter of government revenues. Now since the eight-year civil war, U.S. air strikes, ISIS attacks, and such, production is down 90%, to only about forty-thousand barrels per day.”

The recent Iranian drone attacks on oil production facilities in Saudi Arabia should have taught Trump a lesson:

Oil fields are extremely vulnerable targets. The thing about oil is that once it comes out of the ground, it is wildly flammable.

Remember what the Iraqi military did to Kuwait’s oil fields when were driven out during the first Gulf War? They lit half the country on fire.

Even if you can get it out of the ground, oil must be transported either to coastal oil terminals for export or must be refined into gasoline and diesel fuel and other salable products. That means it must travel through pipelines or be carried overland in trucks. 

Either way, it’s vulnerable to attack by insurgents who may have other ideas about what should happen to Syria’s oil. 

If Trump thinks ExxonMobil or any other American oil company can just move into Syria and start pumping oil and making profits, he’s dreaming.

My 2 cents: Trump won’t commit troops to protect American allies like the Kurds, but he’s all-in when it comes to going to war for oil, i.e., American blood for ME oil – well, at least he’s honest and direct about it – unlike other devious Republicans in the past, but folks, that is not necessarily a good quality, either.

All that is like now with the Ukraine mess as more details of Trump‘s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrats and Biden come out.

Now that many facts have been confirmed publicly by White House documents, Trump himself, and others, the ultimate question for all lawmakers to decide: Whether Trump’s actions, words, and conduct are impeachable or not and if they will stand with and for the country or stick with Trump?

Ever since day one, he has used his presidency as a source of profits for his family business either domestically or foreign right since the day he was inaugurated into office. Now as I said, he wants to use the bodies of American soldiers so his pals in the oil business can “take Syrian oil.” 

This shows his basic view and that of many GOP supporters: That he is above that law.

Now, Trump has found a forever war he wholeheartedly believes in: One based on theft and profit with American blood on all that sand he says there is there to play with (LA Times here).

Wow - how profane.

Thanks for stopping by.