This is the subtitle of Daniel Yergin's book “The Prize”. An excellent book in every respect, though fans of the USSR will surely say it's portrayed as an evil empire there. That is not the case: the US looks even worse – especially when it's shaking with fear and groveling before Islamic countries, and can't make a strong-willed decision on using force.
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Iranians of practically all religious denominations took part in the defense of the country, including the Arabs of Khuzestan, who showed zero desire to be „liberated“ and treated the Iraqis not as „brothers“, but rather as invaders. Iraq was not prepared to encounter such an „uplifting of the human spirit“. Ahead of the regular Iranian forces, giving no thought to saving their own lives, hundreds of thousands of young Iranians marched into battle, drawn by the Shiite ideal of martyrdom. Some arrived at the front bringing their own coffins, – they were following Khomeini's words that „absolute happiness in Islam is to kill and be killed in the name of the Prophet“. And they were handed plastic keys to heaven, which they wore around their necks. Even children took part in clearing minefields for the less valuable and scarcer tanks, and thousands of them died.
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From the book, you can also learn why the Shell company is named and looks the way it does, and who one of its founders by the name of Samuel Samuel was.
By the way, a little test of your knowledge of English-speaking realities (unrelated to the book) – do you know what chap stick is?