Just ahead of the August 2020 visit to Washington of Iraq Prime Minister, Mustafa al- Kadhimi, promised then-U.S. President, Donald Trump, that he would allow a raft of in-principle agreed contracts with U.S. companies to finally go ahead, with a substantial presence of U.S. ‘security personnel’ on the ground to safeguard these interests. The express intention of this initiative by the U.S. was to draw a line in relentless advance of China and Russia into what had been its heartlands of influence in the central Middle East. For Iraq, the promise was made simply to expedite its waiver from the U.S. to continue to import gas and power from Iran and to avoid Washington cutting off financial assistance to it and introducing threatened sanctions against Baghdad . The ratification last week of a US$480 million deal for U.S. oilfield services giant, Schlumberger, to drill 96 horizontal and diagonal oil […]