The foundation stone for the re-entry of several major Western energy firms into Iraq was the US$27-billion four-pronged mega-project finally ratified by France’s TotalEnergies in 2023. The project was particularly aimed at addressing two critical issues that had dogged Iraq’s development for decades and whose resolution had been stymied by bureaucracy and corruption at senior levels across several governments in Baghdad, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. One of these crucial issues was dramatically…