The ‘It’s About Oil’ Theory in Iraq Is Still Inaccurate

Aug 13, 2014 | Defense One
View Original

Whenever the US takes military action in the Middle East, oil surfaces as the supposed primary rationale. So it is with president Barack Obama’s air war against ISIL, the Islamic militants who threaten Irbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. In the New Yorker, Steve Coll writes that the strikes are “effectively the defense of an undeclared Kurdish oil state.” Robert Fisk comments similarly in the Independent and John Judis in the New Republic.