With the U.S.’s patience wearing thin on its dealings with neighbouring Iran, endemic corruption still prevalent in both the south of the country and in the northern semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, and enduring political chaos with frequently-changing prime ministers popping up whilst the real power remains with firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr , the last thing Iraq needed was Saudi’s oil price war. Even before Saudi Arabia embarked yet again on exactly the same oil price strategy that nearly bankrupted it and all of its neighbours the last time it tried and failed to destroy the U.S. shale oil industry in 2014 to 2016, Iraq was trying to minimise outgoing payments to the international oil companies (IOCs) that operate its fields and to come to some accommodation the government of Kurdistan (the KRG) on co-ordinating oil exports and sales revenues. All of this now hangs on a thread, and Russia […]