The elephant in the room between Trump and oil execs: Iraq

2026-01-26 - 13:29

London — President Donald Trump painted a simplistic picture for the US operation in Venezuela: go in, get the oil and start exporting. But Big Oil’s experience in post-invasion Iraq proved that the reality will be far more complicated. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and captured its leader, Saddam Hussein. More than two decades later, US special forces captured former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in Caracas — another despot presiding over billions of barrels of crude oil. Despite that blunt parallel, Venezuela presents a different case in many ways: There is no war, no American troops on the ground, not to mention entirely different social and political systems. But