October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria attack Israel, beginning the 19-day Yom Kippur War

Responding to the American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur war, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich middle

eastern states form OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

FDR meets with Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, in 1945, offering the Saudi’s a promise of security in exchange for

easy American access to cheap Saudi oil

Political cartoon from 1976 expressing the increasing realization that the American lifestyle was built on cheap oil

Long lines and sold-out gas pumps in the wake of the 1973 OPEC embargo

The 1973 Mercury MarquisThe 1973 Cadillac

The 1970s version of the SUV, typically getting less than 10 mpg; overall average for 1973 cars was 13.1 mpg

The sharp increases in oil prices that began with the 1973 OPEC embargo

President Ford stumbles on wet stairs in 1975, seen by some as symbolic of his stumbling economic policies

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter break with tradition and walk to the inauguration, January 1977

The Three Mile Island nuclear power facility near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Three Mile Island, evening of March 28th 1979

Map illustrating proximity of Three Mile Island nuclear reactors to major population centers

For decades the Middle East and Persian Gulf states had been central to American foreign policy because of their large oil reserves

The American-backed Shah of Iran on the cover of Time, 1960

The Iranian Revolution of February, 1979, which deposed the Shah and established an Islamic theocracy under the Ayatollah Khomeini

The second sharp increase in world oil prices caused by the Iranian Revolution

Jimmy Carter’s famous “Crisis of Confidence” speech of July 15, 1979:

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.”

Student revolutionaries outside American Embassy in Iran, November 1979

Some of the 53 Americans taken hostage in Tehran

Soviet helicopter gun ships during

the disastrous Soviet-Afghanistan

War, 1979-1988

December of 1979, the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to prop up a faltering Marxist regime, bring them dangerously close to Persian Gulf oil fields

The Carter DoctrineThe Carter Doctrine

Result of the Iranian crisis, the Soviet invasion of Result of the Iranian crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and widespread public rejection of Afghanistan, and widespread public rejection of his domestically based attempt to decrease US his domestically based attempt to decrease US dependency on foreign oil, Carter does an about dependency on foreign oil, Carter does an about facefaceThe Carter Doctrine (January 1980): “An attempt The Carter Doctrine (January 1980): “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military by any means necessary, including military force.”force.”

Iranian officials survey the remains of the disastrous American attempt to rescue the hostages in April of

1980

February 1991: In the First Persian Gulf War American soldiers removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and thwarted his hopes of eventually taking control of much

of the Persian Gulf oil wealth

WW IV

The massive American bombing of Baghdad in March of 2003 that began the Second Persian Gulf War—President Bush’s attempt to transform the Persian

Gulf and its vast oil supplies into a democratic, pro-American region

WW IV

American military bases in the Greater Middle East as of 2004

1977 editorial cartoon by Edward Sorrel, “Pay Up Fatso”

American use of foreign oil in the past and projections to 2025

Twenty-five years after Carter tried and failed to wean the American people off foreign oil, and after 25 years of WWIV,

President Bush returns to the search for a technological solution: Nuclear power, fuel-efficient cars, cleaner coal plants,

more oil refineries

This morning’s Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989

Questions?Questions?