Much has been said over the past few weeks about what motivated Donald Trump to go to war with Iran. Since he has given more than half a dozen different explanations, and sometimes in the same day, there’s no way of knowing for sure. With few restraints on his ambitions in his second term, the president has seemingly become convinced of his own omnipotence.
He has also thrown in his lot with Israel and certain Gulf states for ideological and financial reasons. (In the case of Israel, there are also theological considerations at play.) But Trump has another motive that he’s never tried to hide. In fact, he’s been saying it explicitly for the better part of 40 years: “We should take the oil.”
