Donald Trump has had a fixation on Iraq’s oil—and America’s right to seize it—for at least six years.
In 2011, he told a Fox News producer that the U.S. should “take the
oil.” It was a common theme on the campaign trail last year. “We go in,
we spent three trillion dollars. We lose thousands and thousands of
lives, and then look what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used
to be the victor belong the spoils,” Trump said
on NBC’s “Today Show,” in September. “There was no victor there,
believe me. There was no victory. But I always said, ‘Take the oil.’ “