The primary threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East was what U.S. planners dubbed "radical Arab nationalism." According to the planners, the "radical nationalists" believed that the indigenous populations should be the primary beneficiaries of the development of U.S. resources as U.S. planners perceived it which happened to be located in other people's lands. Washington remedied these matters by suppressing the movement via propping up dependent client regimes who had a shared interest in maintaining the status quo, thereby relieving "pressures on Western oil companies for arrangements more favorable to producing and transit countries..." Exhibit A: Exhibit B: Exhibit C: Exhibit D: And that's how the imperial system works in the region.