Trump’s Iraqi obsession wasn’t ISIL but oil
In numerous interviews, he urged removal of troops except to ‘protect the oil’ for the United States.
As the U.S. prepared to exit Iraq in 2011, Trump offered conflicting and muddled opinions about America’s role in the country. He incorrectly predicted that Iran would “walk in” and lay claim to Iraq’s oil fields. In multiple interviews and a book, he said nothing about the threat of ISIL-style radicalism that many experts were publicly warning about at the time.
.. On at least once occasion in early 2011, Trump even said he supported a speedy U.S. withdrawal from the country. Asked by CNN’s Piers Morgan in a February 2011 interview what he would do about U.S. troops in Iraq, Trump said he would “get them out real fast.”
.. Instead, Trump fixated on the specific concern that Iran would take control of Iraq’s oil.
“Two minutes after we leave, Iran is going to come in and take the oil,” Trump told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in an April 2011 interview. “You stay and you protect the oil.”
.. One person who did focus on the threat of Islamic terrorism in Iraq after a U.S. troop withdrawal was Hillary Clinton, whom Trump has also described in recent days as a “founder” of ISIL.
.. In his 2011 book “Time to Get Tough,” Trump argued at length that the U.S. should “protect and control the oil fields” of Iraq, which are mostly located in south Iraq, far from the Sunni territories where ISIL has operated.
Trump’s book also argued for establishing a “cost-sharing plan” that would divide Iraq’s billions of dollars in oil revenue and reimburse the U.S. for its expenses from invading and occupying the country. “Call me old school, but I believe in the old warrior’s credo that ‘to the victor go the spoils,'” Trump wrote.
.. Indeed, Trump suggested in his Wall Street Journal interview that oil profits were a reason why he approved of the 2003 invasion of Iraq—which in recent months he has insisted he always opposed, despite evidence to the contrary.