Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Kurds, oil, and Exxon

Joel Wing offers up a good overview of Kurdish oil deals, along with some interesting maps. (I hadn’t realized, for example, that one of the blocks Exxon bought is right on the outskirts of Mosul — that’s playing with fire.) The bottom line, it seems to me, is that the Kurds have found a way ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Wikimedia
Wikimedia
Wikimedia

Joel Wing offers up a good overview of Kurdish oil deals, along with some interesting maps. (I hadn't realized, for example, that one of the blocks Exxon bought is right on the outskirts of Mosul -- that's playing with fire.) The bottom line, it seems to me, is that the Kurds have found a way to benefit from the dithering and stalemates of Baghdad: They continue to talk to the central government while acting as if they were an independent entity.

Joel Wing offers up a good overview of Kurdish oil deals, along with some interesting maps. (I hadn’t realized, for example, that one of the blocks Exxon bought is right on the outskirts of Mosul — that’s playing with fire.) The bottom line, it seems to me, is that the Kurds have found a way to benefit from the dithering and stalemates of Baghdad: They continue to talk to the central government while acting as if they were an independent entity.

It all makes me want to sit down sometime this summer and read Steve Coll’s new book on Exxon.

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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