Word: strait
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Whoever controls the Middle East's oil, or the area's Strait of Hormuz (40 miles wide at its narrowest) between Iran and the Sultanate of Oman through which most of it passes, acquires a stranglehold on the world's economy. The U.S.S.R. today is self-sufficient in oil, but it could well become a major net importer in the 1980s?and thus be in direct competition with the West for the crude pumped out of the desert sands. The warm-water ports so ardently desired by the Czars since the 18th century retain almost as much importance today. Soviet...