Using recently declassified documents, author Ivan Pearson argues that although the Suez Crisis was cataclysmic on many dimensions, it did not mark a precipitous turning point in Britain’s ability to affect events in the Middle East decisively. Although Suez wholly undermined British prestige, and revealed severe shortcomings in its military capabilities, this work states that these losses were considerably offset by the increasing ability of British policymakers to influence the United States—a country with an emerging presence in the region. In the Name of Oil documents the frequent bureaucratic infighting between the administration, state department, and CIA on the American side, as well as the way in which the British took advantage of the blurred line between communism and Arab nationalism in the Middle East to mislead the U.S. into pursuing policies that would protect the cheap oil supplied by British-owned oil giants such as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Iraq Petroleum Company.