Category Iraq

Oil Prices

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Nice map here (repeated above): Deutsche Bank Map

Couple of things caught my eye:

  1. Nigeria & Venezuela
  2. Of course, Algeria & Libya
  3. Iraq & Iran (which is just been added to the world market)
  4. Kazakhstan
  5. Russia (where the situation is much worse than shown by this map because of their tax system)
  6. Azerbaijan (which just showed up in the news with conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh)

The quote to pull from this article is:

While Nigeria requires an oil price of $85 per barrel to balance its budget in 2016, Kuwait needs only $47 a barrel. If countries used government assets to finance their budget deficits while the oil price was low, Kuwait would hypothetically be able to do this for the next 122 years, while Nigeria could only manage 0.1 years.

 

The Islamic State is in Retreat

[Photo deleted at the request of AFP]

An interesting article today in the Washington Post (photo from Huffington Post):

The Islamic State is in Retreat

A few lines caught my attention:

  1. “The U.S. military estimated earlier this year that the Islamic State had lost 40 percent of the territory it controlled at its peak in 2014.”
  2. “Shadadi was going to be a major six-week operation….Instead, they completely collapsed.”
  3. “We could probably liberate Mosul tomorrow…”
  4. “…troops encountered little resistance, overrunning five mostly empty villages ahead of retreating militant fighters.”
  5. “…it is starting to become possible to foresee the group’s ultimate defeat, said Knights, who thinks that could come by the end of next year.”

Of course, by establishing an “Islamic State,” a guerilla movement has now developed a conventional mission to hold territory. This allows us to develop a more conventional war against them. There may still be a guerilla movement to deal with after the Islamic State has been reduced.

 

 

Mosul

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Well, they are finally going to re-take Mosul. I think we heard that before, but this time it is probably true.

Link: Mosul

They are saying they may take it by the end of 2016 or early 2017. That is a very long time, considering how close the Iraq Army is to it. They are 70 km (45 miles) away from Mosul! Mosul was taken by ISIL in early June 2014. So they are looking at 2 1/2 years before the second city of Iraq is reclaimed.

Just for comparison on 30 March 1972, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong started their large spring offensive (the Easter Offensive). On 1 May 1972, the South Vietnamese Army gave up Quang Tri in the most northern province in Vietnam. This was the provincial capital of Quang Tri province. They withdrew from the capital and the province at that time. In mid-September 1972, the South Vietnamese Army had retaken Quang Tri. This was 4 1/2 months later. They held it until the 1975 offensive, which ended South Vietnam.