To Keep the Soviets Out, America Planned to Destroy the Middle East

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

65% : The oil field plan was rooted in the pessimism of the early Cold War, when Communism seemed on the offensive in places like Berlin and Korea, and no one could be sure if even Western Europe could be held.
42% : How American paratroopers and light infantry would have fared against Soviet tank columns is debatable, but there looms an even larger question: Was America prepared in the 1970s and 1980s to use nuclear weapons on Saudi Arabia or Iran, solely to keep the oil out of Russian hands?
39% : That fate could have included mushroom clouds over Tehran and Riyadh.

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