Phil Klay
In September 2016 I went to a televised forum with the two leading presidential candidates and asked Donald Trump about military policy in Iraq, where I served with the Marine Corps several years earlier. He told me America should “take the oil.” Then he said it again: “Take the oil.”
A dumb answer, but a clear one. If we’re going to put American lives at risk, let’s get something out of it. Something concrete, something valuable. You can’t touch an ideal, but you can shove your grasping hands deep into a black pool of liquid gold. A few years later, explaining our military presence in Syria, Mr. Trump said he was keeping troops there “only for the oil.” What a thing to ask soldiers to fight for.
When it comes to articulating a vision of American warfare, Mr. Trump is the least hypocritical president of my adult life. He does not promise to spread democracy or human rights or a liberal, international rules-based order. He does not claim we’re a shining city on a hill. “We’ve got a lot of killers,” he has said instead. “What? You think our country’s so innocent?” He has stated smaller, less idealistic goals: our borders, secure; our economy, soaring; our wars, ended. These are most presidents’ goals, of course, but Mr. Trump expresses them plainly, even crassly.
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