"We Have Secured The Oil"
This says it all, doesn't it?
If not everything, then so much. It's not the first reference that Donald has made to securing the oil, with regards to Syria. It's a bit more expansive than previous references, though no less cryptic to commentators who don't understand how he operates.
When Donald entered the race as what Maureen Dowd termed "Donald The Dove", decrying our endless wars and foreign entanglements, it wasn't as a pacifist. It wasn't even an anti-interventionist.
It was as a looter.
Why were we toppling governments, he wondered, if not to conquer and annex the lands they had governed? Why were we invading nations rich in strategic resources if not to take those things for ourselves? Ensuring continued access to them was for pansies. To the victor goes the spoils.
Even as he insists to this day that he was always against the Iraq invasion, he will also insist to this day that we were fools not to seize the Iraqi oilfields, and if asked will speak wistfully of wanting to take another crack at them.
On this score -- on the score of making a score -- he is consistent. He'll pull troops from Syria, but send them to Saudi Arabia, who promises treasure. He'll abandon our Kurdish allies in Syria, because what have they done for him lately? But the oil, the oil he can't let that fall into the wrong hands.
It's secured, he says.
And we'll decide what to do with it later.
The language is suggestive. What it suggests is that he wanted to seize the oil, but was told we can't. Probably literally physically can't rather than shouldn't, because I don't think shouldn't would stop him at this point.
But if told there's no way physically to remove all the oil and take it back to the United States at this time, and told that we could secure it for now, and possibly told or not contradicted when he himself said that we could sort out its disposition later... well, then you might get a statement like the one quoted above.
Others have pointed to a broader strategic goal that might be behind the troop movements that prompted the bizarre statement, and I won't say they're wrong. But I will point out that Donald chooses to describe this as securing the oil. He makes no mention to any strategy, not even his typically veiled references to secret plans or the element of surprise. His interest begins and ends with the black gold.
Because what over there is worth fighting for, if it's not gold of one color or another?
Thank you for reading!
You can receive future newsletters like this straight to your inbox as they go out for free. If you especially enjoy them and you wish to help me continue writing them, you can choose to purchase a paid subscription for $5 a month, or just $45 per year. That’s 25% off the monthly cost!