At an Irish golf course, Donald Trump offered a rare moment of imperial candor — suggesting that a post-war United States might remain in Iran not to rebuild it, but to claim its oil, much as it had done in Venezuela. The remark marks a quiet but significant shift in how American power is being narrated: less as a force for order, more as an instrument of resource acquisition. History has seen empires speak this language before, though rarely so plainly from a sitting president.