ABSTRACT
In 1909 the United States (US) decided to assign a full-time consul to Muscat. Two events had intervened. First, trade had increased measurably between Muscat and the US as the latter became one of the chief importers of Omani dates. The second event that encouraged the appointment of a full-time consul was the establishment some years before of an American Protestant Mission in Muscat. The long-term influential American presence in the gulf has been the oil companies. Oil company personnel provided the first, daily contact of many gulf citizens with products of a Western, secular society. The October 1973 Arab-Israeli war had a profound effect on the gulf. In the gulf area, the most likely antagonists in a conventional war are still Iraq and Iran, despite their current rapprochement. There are a number of US domestic considerations relating to US arms sales to the gulf which are as important as the effect of the sales on the area.
