Syrian officials say that they are looking at filing an international lawsuit against the United States government over the intended theft of Syrian oil from fields in the country’s northeast.



Since October, President Trump has totally revised the goals of the US war in Syria, entirely around the idea of “securing” the oil, and has been very public about intending to have the US take the oil for themselves.



Syria has very limited oil reserves, and they would be one of the few sources of reconstruction funds in the post-war period. The Syrian government seems to realize they need to at least sort of control that oil, or preclude the US from stealing it outright.



The international legal process could take a long time, but with no American oil companies coming forward to extract Syria’s oil to begin with, the Assad government can likely afford to be patient, and comfortable that they’d almost certainly win this lawsuit, since the US has never even offered an attempted legal justification for taking the oil.

Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz