A rich investigation by Kenneth R. Rosen on the nature of US involvement in Syria's oil sector.

The US involvement was through Delaware-based Delta Crescent Energy, established in April 2020 (Trump's final term).

Who was behind it? What happened to it? What's the KRG's role?

"The company [...] was established by the former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark James P. Cain, a retired Delta Force officer Jim Reese, and John Dorrier, a former oil executive, at least two of whom donated to Republican party candidates."

Oil from Rojava is smuggled and sold at a discount to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) among other buyers.

Delta Crescent's scheme was simple: get an exemption from the US Treasury, export the oil 'legally,' raise the price, and take a $1 cut per barrel.

But the lofty ambitions of Delta Crescent came to an abrupt end, as the Biden administration decided two weeks ago not to extend the license for their work in Syria.

Mansour Barzani, the brother of KRG's prime minister, controls the Lanaz refinery in Iraq that buys Rojava's cheap smuggled oil.

The KRG was working to undermine Delta Crescent to keep the price of Syrian oil low.

SDF is now back to its business model of selling smuggled oil to the KRG, the Syrian regime, and opposition-held areas in NWS at discounted rates.

So was that a corrupt scheme? You decide.

I remember writing my views on the topic with Armenak here.

https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/80517

Ken's investigation for the The Daily Beast can be found here (subscription-based).