The oil kings
Subtitle: how the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia changed the balance of power in the Middle East
By: Andrew Scott Cooper
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 530
ISBN-13: 9781439155172
Subjects: Politics and government; Petroleum industry and trade; Foreign relations; History
Description: This is an account of an era we thought we knew: how the US decision in the mid-1970s to choose Saudi Arabia as the dominant oil power in the Mideast ultimately led to the Islamic revolution in Iran, and how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs. The author draws on newly declassified documents and interviews with some key figures of the time to show how Nixon, Ford, Kissinger, the CIA, and the State and Treasury departments, as well as the Shah of Iran and the Saudi royal family, maneuvered to control events in the Middle East. He details the secret U.S.-Saudi plan to circumvent OPEC that destabilized the Shah; reveals how close the U.S. came to sending troops into the Persian Gulf to break the Arab oil embargo; and shows how the Ford Administration barely averted a European debt crisis that could have triggered a financial catastrophe in the U.S.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: A kind of super man; title: Guardian of the Gulf; title: Double indemnity; title: Contingencies; title: Oil shock; title: Cruel summer; title: Screaming eagle; title: Potomac Scheherazade; title: Henry's wars; title: The spirit of '76; title: Royal flush; title: Oil war.