M. E. AHRARI is Professor of Middle East and West Asian Affairs at the United States Air War College. He is a specialist in American policy process, with interests in foreign and defense policies, superpower relations in the Middle East, and the political economy of oil. His books include The Gulf and International Security (1989), Ethnic Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy (Greenwood Press, 1987), OPEC--The Failing Giant (1986), and The Dynamics of Oil Diplomacy: Conflict and Consensus (1980). He has also published extensively in professional journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia. JAMES H. NOYES has been a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1985. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern, African, and South Asian Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He has written The Clouded Lens: Persian Gulf Security and U.S. Policy( 1979, 1981) and his most recent publications have appeared in American-Arab Affairs and in M. E. Ahrari's (editor), The Gulf and International Security (1989). Since 1984, he has served as editor of the Middle East section of Yearbook on International Communist Affairs.