PRESIDENT Dwight Eisenhower called the Middle East “the most strategically important area in the world,” “a stupendous source strategic power and probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment.” State Department declared the Middle East “a prize that US intended to keep for itself and its allies in the unfolding new world order of the day.” Delano Roosevelt’s adviser, Adolf Berle, declared: "control of the incomparable energy reserves of the Middle East would yield substantial control of the world.