For their part, Berger, Heslin, and their White House colleagues saw themselves engaged in a hardheaded synthesis of American commercial interests and national security goals. They wanted to use the profit-making motives of American oil companies to thwart one of the country’s most determined enemies, Iran, and to contain the longer-term ambitions of a restless Russia. This was a traditional and creative form of American statecraft, they believed. The previous generation had produced America’s crucial security and oil alliances with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf emirates. Now big oil and
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