Why are we interested? The same reason Russia and China are.

Then 2010:

Iraq and Syria have completed technical talks about a planned pipeline for transporting Iraqi oil to Mediterranean ports, AlWatan daily reported, citing an official speaking with the Kurdistan Independent News Agency. The results of the talks were positive, and Iraqi officials will report on the discussions within three days, the Damascus-based newspaper reported, citing comments by an adviser to the Iraqi government, Salam Al-Quraishi, talking to AKNEWS, the Kurdish news agency.

The 225-kilometer (140-mile) pipeline would transport Iraqi crude across Syria to the Mediterranean Sea and have an export capacity of about 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, he said.

A pipeline with a capacity of 600,000 barrels a day already links Iraq’s northern oil fields in Kirkuk to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Turkey.

Now Today:

Iraq will lose the capacity to export 1.7 million barrels of crude a day if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, the transit point for about two thirds of its production, an Oil Ministry spokesman said.

The Gulf state is pursuing plans to open new crude export routes via neighboring Syria, following threats by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to international sanctions on its energy industry, Thamir Ghadhban, the Iraqi prime minister’s top adviser, said Feb. 2.