However, it is also true that Washington continues to regard the Middle East as vital to its political and economic interests going forward for three main reasons. Iraq stands in the very heart of the Middle East from a geographical, political, and religious perspective, and is also the repository for some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves. Against this backdrop, the wide-ranging ‘Oil for Reconstruction and Investment’ agreement was signed between China and Iraq in 2019. One was Baghdad’s approval of nearly IQD1 trillion (USD700 million at the time) for critical infrastructure projects in the city of Al-Zubair in the southern Iraq oil hub of Basra. For the U.S. and its partners, this moment could mark not simply a retrenchment, but the beginning of a renewed phase of influence in the heart of the Middle East.