Iraq oil contracts

Pepe Escobar says the oil contracts signed so far in Iraq show that Russia and China have outcompeted the US, so the invasion of Iraq's goal of getting control of Iraq's resources was not that successful. He also says that what the early 2010s will definitely see is the rise of a relatively wealthy, Shi'ite-controlled Iraq friendly with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Essentially, Shi'ite Islam on the rise.

Speaking before the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus in October, oil magnate T. Boone Pickens said the cost in lives and money entitled U.S. companies to some of the Iraqi crude. “They’re opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world. We’re entitled to it,” he said. “Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars. We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil.”