This paper addresses US policy in the Middle East and threats of military incursion into the Arab oil fields, during the terms of US Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter from 1973 to 1979. It sheds light on the purpose of the threats, their timing, the discussions surrounding them in US political circles, and the responses of the Arab countries. The study concludes that US policy was mistaken and had the opposite of the intended effect, and that it paved the way for unprecedented political and economic disasters at the regional, US, and global levels.