A Concise History of the Middle East

380 • 19 THE REASSERTION OF ISLAMIC POWER

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MAP 19.1 The Persian Gulf area

Gulf as simply "the Gulf.") The other countries (except Iraq) had big oil re¬
sources and revenues, small native populations, and many immigrant
workers. Many feared at the time that these young, mostly male workers
might subvert conservative Gulf societies, but this did not occur.
The US government harped on a possible Soviet invasion across Iran, for
the Russians had long been thought to harbor designs on the Gulf and its
oil. The Soviet government, with good reason, noted various speeches and
articles in which Americans threatened to seize the oil fields to protect them
against revolutionaries. The local Arab rulers, hereditary monarchs except