Donald Trump has wondered why the United States didn’t take Iraq’s oil to pay for our invasion. He has insisted that the United States must TAKE THE OIL!
The United States didn’t take the oil because pillaging, theft during war, is a war crime (more here). If a practical reason is needed, oil production and pipelines are extremely vulnerable to sabotage and military action. A continuing military presence would be needed to protect the seized oilfields. Trump seems to believe that the oil can be rapidly pumped from the ground and removed. It can’t.
Trump came into office promising to get American troops out of the Middle East. Many people support that goal. We have been in Afghanistan for eighteen years now. It’s not clear that our presence in the region has improved American security, and now our Saudi partners are dragging us into a war in Yemen.
But Trump knows nothing about military action or our relations with the countries in the region and refuses to learn. Nor does he care to use the decision-making aids available to the President. He has some longstanding prejudices, however, along with his willingness to make decisions impulsively.
After a telephone conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Trump broadcast his decision via tweet to remove American troops from northeast Syria. The withdrawal leaves the Kurds vulnerable to the Turks, who want the Kurds out of the way. Trump assured us that Erdoğan would not harm the Kurds; he would punish Erdoğan with sanctions if he did.
Then Trump changed his mind and sent Erdoğan a letter that sounded like it came from a middle-school bully. Not all the troops were withdrawn. Some were sent to Saudi Arabia. And now the military is concerned that Trump may want to send them all back.
Trump’s ignorance and impulsiveness in this matter have caused problems from the logistical to the constitutional.
Trump’s tweet surprised the American military. They appear to have had no plans for withdrawal, although Trump has been talking about it since his campaign. A case can be made that withdrawal from northeastern Syria, particularly as abruptly as Trump required, is the wrong thing to do. But the military is subject to the civilian Commander-in-Chief, and they should have made a plan. It’s a bit puzzling, because the military is famous for having plans for actions as improbable as invading Canada.
Trump should have known that armies cannot withdraw from combat in the space of time it takes to send a tweet, or even over a few days. Trump could have instructed the military to make plans for withdrawal at the beginning of his presidency, since that was one of his promises. A plan would have dealt with how to protect the Kurds and how long a withdrawal would be likely to take under various circumstances. It could have even covered protecting the oil.
Military and other advisors seem to have used the idea of taking the oil to convince Trump to maintain a presence in the area after his tweet. Trump feels no obligation to the Kurds, and seems convinced that ISIS is defeated and cannot return. But he does want to take the oil. A National Guard unit from South Carolina is now guarding northeast Syria’s tiny oilfields with armored vehicles unsuited to dealing with ISIS.
This corrupts the chain of command. The President made a decision. The military is supposed to take his orders. But they and others have argued back and effectively rescinded the decision, although the troops now in place have a different mission than before. Trump began the corruption by ignoring the National Security Council process for decision-making that would have taken recommendations from the military, the State Department, and others before the decision was made.
Nobody seems now to know what the mission is. Protecting the oilfields is the stated reason the National Guard troops are there. Are there American rules of engagement for encounters with Syrian government troops? Turkish troops? ISIS? Russian troops? Is any of this consistent with the existing Authorization for the Use of Military Force?
Once upon a time, wars in the Middle East were cynically characterized as “blood for oil.” Now that charge is irrefutable, supported by the words of the President.
A Pentagon spokesperson says that the income from oil wells in the Kurdish areas will go to the Kurds. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the United States from “taking the oil.” Trump has said that he wants American companies to develop the oilfields, but they have no interest in doing that illegally, nor in a combat zone.
Trump knows nothing of international law, the geology of northeast Syria, the production of oil, or loyalty to allies. He sees the American military as a profit center. The number of American troops in Syria has remained constant since his pronouncement, but their mission has become less clear. Trump’s ego demands that he proclaim some sort of victory. His ignorance results in inappropriate decision-making by the Department of Defense. He can’t even achieve his own objective of removing the troops from the Middle East.
He is unfit to be president.
Patricia Kayden
joel hanes
The US tried hard to take Iraq’s oil.
Early on, the troops were ordered to preferentially secure oil infrastructure (instead of, say, the National Museum of Iraq).
And the W misadministration first suggested, then cajoled, and then demanded that the Majlis pass an “oil law” that would enable the petro multinats allied with Cheney to take a lead role in re-developing and exploiting Iraq’s oil resources.
The Majlis told us to pound sand.
To “take the oil” at that point would have involved repudiation and destruction of the new Iraqi government that we ourselves had helped create, and would have required continual occupation of the country while native Iraqi insurgents tried to drive us out. Oil infrastructure is huge and fragile and easy to damage — holding and operating it against insurgents on their home ground is a fool’s errand.
In short, Trump’s a goddamned fool, but that’s not news.
bbleh
This is government by and for a drunk guy on a barstool.
Baud
Just Security had a post on this topic this morning too. Based on a quick skim, the author there expressed a similar view.
SFAW
“It’s not a war crime if the President does it. Get used to it, libtard!”
— former JAG officer and current jag-off Lindsey Graham
Yutsano
FTFY. They’re nothing but playthings to him. The one piece of the governmental puzzle that absolutely must obey his commands. The fact they can be used for profit is just gravy.
Cheryl Rofer
@bbleh: I had a sentence in the draft along those lines, but I took it out. Thanks for adding it back in.
@Baud: Thanks. I missed that while I was writing.
Martin
How about an even more practical reason: The US is the largest oil producer in the world. Why the fuck would we seek out what is quite likely the hardest oil on earth to extract when we can just go to North Dakota instead? Or California? Texas? Oklahoma? Pennsylvania?
I would just like one fucking day when Trumps Razor is called into question.
laura
He is unfit for more than the presidency.
What a skidmark of a moran.
JPL
NBC NEWS
Well knock me over with a feather. Who would have thought that trump decisions would be based on his personal gain.
Eural Joiner
…and every Trump supporter I know has absolutely no knowledge (or concern) about these issues. That’s what we’re up against. >:(
Melusine
@Cheryl
Thank you for laying it all out so clearly.
He isn’t fit to be Commander of the Priority Frag-able Lieutenants Squad. That moron would fuck up a kamikaze mission if it involved just him, an anchor, and a hamberder at the bottom of an in-ground pool.
…
? Can we maybe try that one anyway? Maybe if it was a hamberder with extra bacon…
MattF
Well, recall that Trump ‘hereby ordered’ all American companies to leave China. Aaaand… what, exactly, happened next?
Cheryl Rofer
@MattF: Trump’s record on making things happen is not good. He doesn’t know how to pull the levers of power.
Major Major Major Major
Insightful as always, Cheryl.
@bbleh:
Trump doesn’t drink, though I’m starting to wonder if it would be better if he did. (Hard to argue it would be worse.)
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: ‘Hold my A*****ll’.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
When I first heard this I just had this mental image of some Iraqi coming out of his house, looking at an oil field, finding it all gone; the pumps, pipes and tanks and shaking his fist and yelling “Americans!” while off at some base a bunch of US soldiers are huddled around a oil pump on a pallet that says “Iraqi Oil” and snickering. And that’s most likely what Trump has in mind.
Just Chuck
The photo of the Russian flag flying over a US military base in Syria should be the only thing Democrats need to show to vets, every single day from now until people forget when the Republican party finally disbanded.
Which is of course why we won’t do that.
MattF
@bbleh: I’d assume that if Trump drank, he’d be dead by now. Alcoholism is not good for you.
Just Chuck
@bbleh: The drunk guy on a barstool eventually sobers up. Trump is the guy soaking tampons in vodka because his throat is too torn up from drinking. And yeah I know T doesn’t drink, but that makes the analogy even more apropos somehow.
JPL
@Just Chuck: Our tax dollars at work. Was the photo verified?
Jay
Grifters gotta grift,…..
Just Chuck
@JPL: Don’t know about the one flag photo, but Russians have eagerly been sharing videos: https://www.newsweek.com/russians-share-videos-hastily-abandoned-us-base-syria-manbij-ours-1465541
Trump has _literally_ betrayed our service members. We need to be hammering this every single fucking day.
Jay
@JPL:
Yup, verified, many photos, three bases, along with gear and supplies that US Forces couldn’t take with them when they followed Dolt 45’s order to bug out and hand the areas over to the Turks, SAA, Russians and Wagner Mercs.
Jay
matt
The other problem is taking the oil will make all parties on the ground there into our enemies. Hard to occupy a place if everyone there is your enemy.
lee
Absolutely. Remember when he said we were going to help the Saudi’s because they were going to pay us?
rikyrah
@Just Chuck:
ready made ad. should already be playing.
MuckJagger
Grifters everywhere. I just read that the guy who slashed the Baby Trump float set up a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for his legal expenses (“first degree criminal mischief,” whatever the hell that means). So far he’s conned over $43,000 from the true believers.
trollhattan
“‘Geneva Convention?’ Fuck the Swedes, what do they know? They’re not the boss of us!”
–Trump’s brain
Seems odd he’s on this now, long after Tillerson left.
trollhattan
@MattF:
Fred Jr. is the family cautionary tale.
Just Chuck
@MuckJagger: To top it off, GoFundMe’s Terms of Service specifically prohibit it from being used to raise legal fees in felony matters.
trollhattan
@MattF:
I wonder if the redesign will finally let us spell it out?
trollhattan
@Just Chuck:
“The only felony here is these monsters disrespecting the president!”
Shalimar
@Jay: Stephen Miller is going to be so shocked when he gets to Hell and they tell him he isn’t white.
Aleta
@MuckJagger: I wonder if the Trump campaign will now bamboozle him out of most of the $.
MattF
@trollhattan: My original post spelled it out and was banished to the outer darkness.
Evil_Paul
The long term implications here are just sickening.
Trump makes a huge strategic decision without consulting anybody, endangering our Kurdish allies and giving a leg up to our rivals (Syria, Russia, and increasingly, Turkey). So the army pushes back and uses the excuse of ‘securing the oil’ to put a small garrison of troops into the area in order to maintain some ill-defined ‘presence.’
The army’s pushing back against its civilian leadership.
If Trump had followed an actual decision-making protocol, that push-back could have happened in its proper manner, as a debate behind closed doors. Objections could have been raised, and a strategic vision could have been clarified. Instead there’s no protocol, and you got the army openly working towards some unclear agenda that’s produced a half-baked plan that puts lives in danger.
The next President is going to have a lot of stuff fix. And that’s assuming things don’t get worse.
Chyron HR
@Patricia Kayden:
You cannot prove any connection between the illegal Russian conspiracy to elect Donald Trump and (checks notes) Donald Trump?
Ksmiami
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ll hold your country hostage for (puts pinky to lips) one Million dollars
Mary G
Thanks Cheryl. I keep flashing back to the sight of him pretending to drive the fire truck in front of the WH and dread opening the news to see what tantrum the toddler has thrown today. With apologies to toddlers everywhere.
Patricia Kayden
@Chyron HR: Apparently not.
Mike in NC
Anybody doubt that Putin convinced Fat Bastard to grab all the oil in Iraq?
Chyron HR
@Shalimar:
The Jewish Nazi, a play in one act:
Miller: It’s like you always say, Mr. President, “With Jews, you lose.”
Kushner: It’s twoo, poppa! You do always say that!
Miller: Quiet, Hymie, the master race is talking here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Yes.
Jay
NotMax
The total amount of oil pumped in Syria on the best day is a rounding error where the global market is concerned. Saw a comparison at someplace credible that it is roughly equivalent to the amount being pumped in Illinois. Plus the political climate in Syria makes investment in upgrading or expansion of extraction untenable.
jc
86
45
The Moar You Know
@Eural Joiner: I have yet to meet a Trump supporter who did not know, in detail, of all his crimes.
They just don’t give a fuck, which is far worse.
Quaker in a Basement
The amount of oil and the ease with which it can or can’t be secured isn’t the point. Trump is just parroting the most blustery of Fox commentators in a message to his dead-end base: “Only I put America first! All the others are weaklings!”
Jay
And deporting Veterans,……..
And a thousand other crimes against Veterans, Gold Star families and Serving Members
gvg
I always though Bush’s care of the Iraq oil infrastructure came out of an awareness that he would be screwed for re election if US oil prices shot up too much. Of course, he came from an actual oil family that also was experienced in politics. I know the conventional wisdom is that the majority of our electorate was pro Iraqi war (based on lies) but to me it always looked a mile wide and an inch deep. It seemed fragile, because Bush had to tell so many lies to get us to agree and any hardship would have made it fall apart. He lied a lot about how much it would cost and gave up doing a proper job because he was told how much it would cost to do it right, not to mention how many troops it would have taken. It never would have worked IMO except for the prior success of Iraq war I which ended up costing us so little due to so much of the world contributing help. It may even have helped people assume, because he was Bush Sr.s son.
If people had heard and believed ahead of invasion what it really cost in money and our lives, I think their would have been no invasion. Oil prices would have gone up even more if that infrastructure had been destroyed. Bush and Cheney knew we needed to be able to keep buying. We didn’t need to steal the oil and they knew we couldn’t.
The Lodger
@jc: Odd… I was just thinking of Agent 86 when I saw the name Hymie in #44.
Max: Hymie?
Hymie the Robot: My father’s name was Hymie.
Melusine
@Shalimar:
Wonder if they have a ?-size guillotine?
Ryan
Isn’t Kuwati bullion a lot easier to take? Florida Man is also too stupid to be preznit.
Martin
Ike warned us the military industrial complex would be a profit center back in 1961. It’s not just Trump that sees it that way. It was apparent nearly 60 years ago.
JimV
Another great post, thanks!
Martin
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s kind of weak tea, if you ask me. Ethics rules are not exactly the kind of thing that keeps people up at night.
Filing a referral for obstruction of justice, that’s got some more teeth to it. And also has the virtue of being correct.
John Revolta
@Evil_Paul: This is what worries me. Well, ONE of the things.
We’ve got the military holding the President in contempt. Okay, probably not the first time, but they’re actually taking steps to work around his stupid decisions and do things their own way. In this case it’s probably for the good but it’s a very dangerous road to start down. Once the Generals figure out they can say “What are you gonna do about it?” to the civilian command, well…………………
Eural Joiner
@The Moar You Know:
You must hang with a different Trump crowd – my family members can’t even find these places on a map, much less accurately describe what’s going on there. But then I don’t know if that makes them better or worse than your group ?
Brachiator
Sigh. Trump doesn’t understand this. He thinks that he need only make his wishes known and everyone will scramble to make it happen. I get the impression that once Trump has uttered a command, he forgets whatever he has ordered and mentally moves on to the next idea rattling around in his head.
I think that Cheryl’s post excellently summarizes Trump’s incompetence with respect to foreign policy.
The sad thing is that I have heard Trump supporters extol him as some kind of political mastermind who keeps foes off balance with his non-traditional thinking and actions. There have always been Americans who believed that diplomacy was a kind of effete and elitist game. They are suckers for a president who is “strong” and believes in quick, decisive actions. One man’s boldness is another person’s lack of impulse control. These people even sympathize with the idea that Trump, like a conqueror, might simply seize Iraqi or Iranian oil. The spoils of war is just tough business practice.
What is unsettling are the increasingly intense revelations that various military and foreign policy staff believed that they could contain, restrain, and re-direct Trump. He ain’t a total fool, and has consistently dismissed staffers who refuse to cater to his whims.
We seem to be fast approaching the point where the only “advisor” who is able to make Trump listen to him is … Putin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin:
And who would he be filing that referral with, DOJ? Schiff and the House have been down that road.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Like what he probably thinks about a mission to the Moon – all that’s required is for NASA to pull the shrink wrap off a rocket and throw some schlub into it with instructions to press down harder on the gas pedal.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Seeing the MIC as a profit center is different from seeing the military as a profit center. The former is about selling Congress on a bunch of expensive military hardware. The latter is about treating the military as a mercenary force that can be rented out to the highest bidder.
Sm*t Cl*de
Your POTUS sees himself as a pimp and the US armed forces as his prostitutes.
NotMax
“Power tends to confuse itself with virtue, and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor.”
– William Fulbright
LivingInExile
@NotMax: The arrogance of power.
stinger
If I were a senior officer and the only way I “knew” I was supposed to pull out troops, or send troops, or take the oil or whatever, was through a tweet, I’d ignore it. I know how I receive my orders, and any instructions that don’t come through the appropriate channels is not to be trusted — Fake Orders, if you will. The military is absolutely right to stay put when Twitter is the only means of communication. “I hereby order,” my foot. My foot in an Army boot. And that boot up his….