Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Trump stood at a Republican fundraiser dinner last week and told the room that Iran wanted to make him their next Supreme Leader. He said no. He, the man who put his name on steaks, a university, an airline and a social media platform, drew the line at running a theocracy. Very restrained. Very humble.
But while that story was doing the rounds, a much older and far more expensive question quietly resurfaced. What did America actually do with the last Middle Eastern country it got its hands on? Because Iraq is right there. And the answer is not particularly flattering.
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The war that never really ended
George W Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The justification was weapons of mass destruction, terrorism ties and the general promise of freedom. The weapons were never found. The Council on Foreign Relations later called the decision the worst foreign policy move in American history. Bush collected his “Mission Accomplished” banner in May 2003 and the world spent the next two decades watching the consequences unfold.
What did not make the headlines quite so loudly was what happened to Iraq’s money. After the invasion, the US led Coalition Provisional Authority set up the Development Fund for Iraq and placed it at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Iraq’s own oil revenues. In an American bank. On paper, Iraq owned the money. In practice, America held the keys and was not in any rush to hand them over.
Between 2004 and 2007 the US Department of Defense failed to properly account for 2.6 billion dollars of Iraq’s 9.1 billion dollars in oil revenues. Nearly a third. Confirmed by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Not alleged. Confirmed.
Twenty years on and nothing has changed
It is now 2026. The invasion was in 2003. Iraqi oil revenues still flow into accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Oil makes up 90 per cent of Iraq’s entire national budget, which came to 83 billion dollars in 2025. And every dollar passes through American financial systems before Iraq can touch it.
In 2020, when Iraq’s parliament voted to expel American troops following the killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, Trump threatened to freeze those New York accounts. Iraq backed down. Not out of affection. Out of necessity. You cannot fight someone who holds your bank account hostage.
American companies meanwhile still operate Iraq’s biggest oil fields. ExxonMobil runs Rumaila. Chevron stepped into the West Qurna 2 field in 2026 after Russia’s Lukoil was pushed out under American sanctions. Reconstruction contracts after the invasion totalled 138 billion dollars and went largely to American firms. Halliburton alone took 39.5 billion dollars. Iraq got the desert. America got the receipts.
So is Trump just doing Bush again?
Right wing commentators including Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan spent years insisting Trump was the anti war candidate. The man who hated neocons. The man who would not send American soldiers to die in foreign deserts for vague reasons. And then Trump launched what he called Operation Epic Fury against Iran. Same liberation rhetoric. Same promises to the people to rise up and take their country back. Almost word for word what Bush said to Iraq in 2003.
The Claremont Institute declared it the end of Trumpism. Analysts called Trump George W Bush with a more colourful personality. The comparisons are uncomfortable because they are not entirely wrong.
The question nobody wants to answer
Which brings us to the real story. Trump is so fixated on Iran that Iraq, the country America has quietly profited from for two decades, is starting to push back. Iraqi soldiers were killed in American airstrikes. Iraq filed a complaint with the UN Security Council. The relationship is fraying.
America never really left Iraq. It just stopped talking about it. And now, while Trump chases Tehran, the country America already has is finally starting to ask for its wallet back.
– Ends
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
