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Page added on August 12, 2014
The REAL Reason for New U.S. and French Military Involvement In Iraq
Why We’re Bombing to Protect Erbil
Why is Obama now re-committing the U.S. military to Iraq? Why is France strongly backing military action?
Obama says it’s to protect minorities. That’s nothing new. Obama is the fourth president in a row to bomb Iraq … while claiming it is for humanitarian purposes.
But the architects of the Iraq War (the one which started in 2003) themselves admitted it was about oil.
But what about now? Why are the U.S. and France deploying military force in Iraq now?
Well, ISIS captured some key oil fields in the Kurdish region of Iraq on August 3rd.
Mere days later, the U.S. started bombing ISIS.
And the strikes were targeted in protecting oil resources. As International Business Times notes:
Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby tweeted: “US military aircraft conduct strike on Isil [Islamic State] artillery. Artillery was used against Kurdish forces defending Erbil, near US personnel.”
Two F-18 fighters dropped laser-guided 500-pound bombs on the mobile artillery target. Militants of the Islamic State were using artillery that has been abandoned by the Iraqi army when it fled to shell Kurdish forces defending the regional capital of Kurdistan.
US airstrikes were very small and very targeted and the Peshmerga Kurdistan forces are waiting for more strikes by the US fighter jets, according to reports.
Similarly, the Military Times reported yesterday:
The Pentagon’s top war planner … Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the director of operations, or “J-3” for the Joint Staff [said] “I think in the immediate areas where we have focused our strikes, we have had a very temporary effect … and we may have blunted some [ISIL] tactical decisions to move in those directions further east toward Erbil,” Mayville said.
“However, these strikes are unlikely to affect ISIL’s overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria,” he said.
Obama authorized the airstrikes for two specific purposes. One mission is to prevent an ISIL advance into the city of Erbil ….
It should be noted, initially, that months of murder, mayhem and brutality by ISIS on Christians and other minorities didn’t cause the U.S. or France to intervene militarily for “humanitarian” reasons.
And notice that the airstrikes were very targeted on protecting Erbil … the regional capital of Kurdistan.
The U.S. and France have never lifted a finger to protect the Kurds. Indeed, the U.S. has actively betrayed the Kurds and let them be slaughtered. For example, during the Gulf War, the U.S. called on the Kurds to rise up against Saddam (implying that he would protect them), but then let Saddam slaughter the Kurds en masse.
So why are the U.S. and France moving now to protect Erbil?
Because Erbil has now become a major oil center. The Kurdish government estimates that the region is the world’s 9th largest oil producer.
Oil companies from around the world operate in Kurdistan, including (major oil companies are indicated in bold, U.S. and French oil companies in italics):
USA
- Exxon Mobil
- Chevron
- Aspect Energy
- Marathon Oil Corporation
- Hillwood International Energy
- Hunt Oil
- Prime Oil
- Murphy Oil
- Hess Corporation
- HKN Energy
- Viking International
France
- Total
Canada
- Forbes and Manhattan
- Western Zagros Resources
- Talisman Energy Inc
- NIKO Resources
- Ground Star
- Shamaran
South Korea
- Korea National Oil Company (KNOC)
Turkey
- Genel Energy
- Petoil
- Dogan
Britain
- Gulf Keystone Petroleum
- Sterling Energy
- Heritage Oil
Anglo-French
- Perenco
UAE
- TAQA
- Dana Petroleum
Austria
- OMV
China
- China acquired a significant presence in Iraqi Kurdistan after Sinopec Group bought Addax Petroleum in 2009.
Hungary
- MOL
India
- Reliance Industries
Papua New Guinea
- Oil Search
Russia
- Norbest
- Gazprom Neft
Norway
- DNO
Iraq
- Oil Search (Iraq) Limited
- Kar Group
- Qaiwan Group
Spain
- Repsol
Independent
- AFREN
Yup … with Chevron, Exxon, Marathon, Hess and Total operating major facilities in Erbil, the latest Iraq war is also about oil … as confirmed by the New Yorker, New Republic and Vox.
For those who don’t believe that Iraqi oil is driving foreign policy, take a look at what Brookings wrote in June:
It should be obvious that a key consideration for the United States arising from [the seizure of huge swaths of Iraq by ISIS] is its potential to affect Iraqi oil production.
***
Any significant disruption of current Iraqi oil production or long-term diminution in its expected growth could have major repercussions for the U.S. economy.
Kurdistan also possesses approximately 89% of all Iraqi natural gas reserves. And so the West – including France – is eager to protect Kurdish hydrocarbons from falling into the hands of ISIS.
Postscript: Indeed, virtually all U.S. wars involve a fight over hydrocarbons.
14 Comments on "The REAL Reason for New U.S. and French Military Involvement In Iraq"
Davy on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 3:14 pm
article said: Indeed, the U.S. has actively betrayed the Kurds and let them be slaughtered. For example, during the Gulf War, the U.S. called on the Kurds to rise up against Saddam (implying that he would protect them), but then let Saddam slaughter the Kurds en masse.
Washblog get your people correct. The Shia’s were enticed into rising up in so many words by Bush Sr. What happened was the US was afraid of being bogged down in Basra with an occupation force so they declined intervention once the uprising began. I personally feel a no fly zone would have succeeded in allowing the Shia’s to achieve a succession but that is Monday morning quarterbacking.
JuanP on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 3:32 pm
“The Kurdish government estimates that the region is the world’s 9th largest oil producer.”
There are twenty countries in the world that produce more than a million BPD in the world. I wonder what they meant by region? This part is propaganda. This are the top oil producers:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
noobtube on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 3:33 pm
How does that saying go…
BOMBING FOR PEACE
is like,
F***ING FOR VIRGINITY.
But, the American idiot falls for it every time.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 4:08 pm
The US maybe the world’s largest oil producer soon, it is also the largest oil importer, although most comes from the western hemisphere. So oil is extremely important.
But at least as important is the fact that these ISIS chaps are now completely out of control.
Originally they were hired via rent-a-terrorist temping agency Qatar to the tune of ca. 50$/day freshly printed money to overthrow Assad, with full aproval of Washington. Washington was like in the Ukraine fully focused on taking apart the Russian alliance structure, before it will attempt to take out Russia itself and strangle it. That was the deal. Now however, ISIS has widened it’s scope, with no real bounderies in sight. They even talked of capturing the White House.lol I don’t think that the US elite is ready yet for such an arrangement. Anyhow, ISIS is now functioning as a magnet for Jihadis all over the world, with the real potential of destabilizing the entire ME. If that would succeed main victim would be Europe, that is currently busy throwing in the windows of the only reliable gas station Europe has left, Russia. Europe does this on orders of Washington and this could only happen because of the shocking weak ‘leadership’ of Europe. Where is Hitler when you need him.lol Meanwhile Europe has understood that if she wants to avoid breaking with Washington and be torced to go Moscow direct or fommit suicide, it has to defend supplies from the ME. Germany has decided it will arm the Kurds. I heard that the UK wants to send some jets and now the French wants to defend the old ME order as well.
Consequences: the US has stopped barking against Iran. I would not be surprised if they will soon support Assad.lol.
And it will all be completely useless.
The West is since 2003 piling mistake upon mistake and this is the best indication that the West will soon be forced to abdicate from it’s NWO aspirations. Excellent, yet another crypto communist shit pile biting the dust. It wont’t be long before Germany and France will make a complete U-turn from west to east, which was Wlad’s strategy all along. Wlad, the statesman of the 21st century, the Russian de Gaulle.
Davy on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 4:19 pm
How about the Noob using some fancy writing with the incongruous juxtapositions:
F**k for Virginity.
I’m impressed Noob!
Davy on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 4:29 pm
Art, I will bet you a beer on this one. We need to figure out a good quantifiable wager. IMHO ISIL will not make any more significant territorial gains in the areas bordering the Kurdish region “IF” the US maintains an air power cordon. Any massed troops, heavy weapons, and necessary logistics will be destroyed and the Kurdish boots on the ground will maintain either a defensive barrier or begin offensive actions. No comment on the Shia’s.
In other news from my home town STL:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-12/faa-just-closed-low-flying-airspace-over-ferguson
Arthur on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 6:07 pm
I will bet a good (virtual) beer that the Kurds will not confront ISIS outside Kurdistan and that ISIS will at least hold the territories they now hold.
Makati1 on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 8:01 pm
WE can argue/discuss the ME forever, but what happens tomorrow will likely not be in our scope. Yes, there is a lot of oil under that sand, but there is no guarantee that most of it, or even a large percentage, will ever reach a market. We can be sure that it will be a good market for the weapons manufacturers though.
There are so many hot spots around the world today, and so many articles about them, that I have to limit myself to four hours of reading and only read about the hot spots that could most affect me and mine. Even that is getting difficult to limit.
Current reading:
Ukraine (pre-war)
Climate Change
Dollar decline/replacement
South China Sea
El Nino
US drought (family)
Price of oil (economic collapse)
As I cannot affect any of those, I just prepare and enjoy the show.
clueless on Tue, 12th Aug 2014 10:00 pm
For whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reaps.
Nuff said.
alokin on Wed, 13th Aug 2014 3:58 am
I cannot believe that the majority of ISIS fighters are jihadists wanting to fight for a place in paradise. Someone pays them. In the past the US paid them.
They must have intelligence information and very good weapons or how could they have so much success? That is not answered in the story above and not in the official story either. I do not believe that they have some stolen weapons from the Iraq army and that’s all.
Davy on Wed, 13th Aug 2014 6:21 am
Al, the US indirectly paid them. They tried to weed out the radicals to get resources to the moderates. It is unfair to say it was a policy of paying radicals. I agree the US indirectly supported ISIL so we have responsibility for this failure. But please be fair. The typical world reaction is damn the US if they don’t get involved then when they do damn them. You Europeans are good at criticism but poor on any kind of efforts. Easy for Europeans to sit back and live the highest standard of living in the world while someone else does the dirty work.
Arthur on Thu, 14th Aug 2014 3:33 am
Davy has a point, Europe should spend a lot more on defense and the US a lot less. Expect however a lot of people in Washington getting very nervous if this were to become reality, because it would mark the beginning of the end of US ovetlordship over Europe. Is going to happen anyway. PNAC was never realistic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Davy on Thu, 14th Aug 2014 7:25 am
Art, I am an American isolationist. This does not work well currently for a country in our complex, interconnected globalized economic and political system. It will work paradoxically in the bifurcation of that system. North America by its geographical nature has the opportunity to fall back within its natural ocean borders in isolationism with still decent carrying capacity compared to other regions. The economics of that is localization and simplification. It would be a form of degrowth but not a managed degrowth instead a forced degrowth. This isolationism would be accomplished by a US political, military, and economic crisis forcing the US to unwind our commitments overseas. A BAU crisis is our only hope to capitalize on our final resource of efficiency that being lifestyle and attitude changes. The US can undergo a wrenching change back to a decentralized localized political and economic system. This will not happen without conflict, pain, and death but it can happen. Places like south and east Asia I fear are a lost region because the carrying capacity is in a hyper breach. Europe with Russia may manage this forced degrowth if they don’t avoid nationalistic suicide. Africa and South America may if the population growth is halted immediately most likely through a collapse situations. Paradoxically now is when failing growth and descent are advantageous. Now is the time for forced preparations, mitigations, and adaptations to the coming collapsed world. Asia will be in the worst possible situation with the current economic and population growth. Asia will experience a jolting shift from hyper population and economic growth to collapse. Europe and North America are in decline and best positioned to descend
JuanP on Thu, 14th Aug 2014 8:18 am
Davy’s point about the Europeans benefitting from their savings in defense thanks to the Americans is valid as Art pointed out. I see it the same way.
I think the reason that several European parties are getting involved all of a sudden is that once the Americans decided something needed to be done, so it was OK to do something, and they were probably encouraged to get involved by the US government, too. Obama would want to share the work and expense of supporting the kurds, and all these countries could benefit from Kurdish oil in the future if they go in now as rescuers and become heroes to the Kurds, or at least leave in friendly terms after establishing a good working relationship with TPTB in Kurdistan.
The reason for this, IMO, is Kurdish oil.