By Leif Wenar/The Conversation
Donald Trump tweeted something true recently. Responding to the protests in Iran, the president stated that “The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered.” Trump’s point is correct: what Vice President Mike Pence called Iran’s “unelected dictators” really have been stealing oil that belongs to the people and spending the money for their own purposes, including (as Trump’s tweet also said) “to fund terrorism abroad.”
Though right about Iran, Trump’s tweets have been too selective. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, an ally of America’s, the elite spends public money gained from selling off the country’s oil, too. There, as in Iran and elsewhere, the people’s wealth is being “stolen and squandered” by the few who enrich themselves on its profits.
This is the biggest story that almost no one is reporting. In dozens of countries around the world, authoritarian regimes and armed groups are selling off the oil that belongs to the people, and using the money to fund repression, corruption, conflict and terrorism.
Oil is the world’s largest traded commodity by far, so the amounts going to these autocrats and militias are gigantic: hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Many of the crises in the headlines over the past few years – coming from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Russia and more – have been powered by money from selling oil stolen from citizens.
Posted on January 29, 2018
