ABSTRACT
The Middle East was controlled by the Ottoman Empire until its defeat by the British, French and allied forces in the First World War. The United States (US) progressively replaced the British and the French as the dominant external power in the region after 1945. The principal US strategic interest in the Middle East was oil. The US economy is heavily dependent on oil and has been a net importer of it for at least fifty years. Access to the regional countries' oil reserves is the reason the US has guaranteed the security of illiberal regimes in the Middle East, including Iran, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, for the last half century. From the late 1950s, the US also emerged as the principal external guarantor of Israeli security against the surrounding Arab states. The US military and political role in the Middle East progressively expanded, until by the 1990s its power in the region appeared near hegemonic.
