The U.S. Power Play in Iraq That Moscow and Beijing Didn’t See Coming
As Russia remains occupied with its war in Ukraine, Iran focuses on defending its territory against U.S. and Israeli attacks, and China maintains its involvement in both conflicts under the bar that would trigger direct conflict with America, Washington is leveraging its position in Iraq.
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Key Facts
- Fact 1: and its allies have taken on further urgency as Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced last week that the country plans to raise oil production to between 8 million barrels per day (bpd) and 10 million bpd within six years -- so the U.S.
- Fact 2: First, it is still one of the biggest oil prizes in the world, with a very conservatively estimated 145 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves (nearly 18% of the Middle East’s total, and the fifth biggest on the planet), according to the Energy Information Administration.
- Fact 3: It is extremely likely that it holds much more oil than this, and the US$2-4 per barrel lifting cost is the joint lowest in the world, along with Iran and Saudi Arabia.
- Fact 4: Following the U.S.’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or colloquially ‘the nuclear deal’) in 2018, China and Russia moved quickly to exploit perceived American weakness across the Middle East.
As Russia remains occupied with its war in Ukraine, Iran focuses on defending its territory against U.S. and Israeli attacks, and China maintains its involvement in both conflicts under the bar that would trigger direct conflict with America, Washington is leveraging its position in Iraq.
These efforts by the U.S. and its allies have taken on further urgency as Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced last week that the country plans to raise oil production to between 8 million barrels per day (bpd) and 10 million bpd within six years -- so the U.S. and its allies want to be best positioned to benefit from that.
(Original synthesis pending human/AI review — generated by the stub provider by selecting real sentences from the source material, not by writing new analysis or commentary.)
Original source: OilPrice.com
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