clipped from: www.loc.gov 
In the 1930s, the United States Senate took an isolationist position against any kind of U.S. involvement in international engagements, ranging from refusal to join the World Court to the passage of the various Neutrality Acts. The provisional neutrality act passed the Senate in 1935.
Iran and Iraq were vital to both the Allies and the Axis during World War II, because of their location and their oil reserves. As part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had agreed on the division of Eastern Europe, and might have contemplated a similar division in the Middle East. Hitler made other plans and on June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
