This paper provides a (re)reading of the projection of U.S. imperial power in the Middle East by examining the internal debates and external policies of the United States towards the region in the period between 1945 and 1958. The typical focus on political alliances and military strategies has overlooked the dynamic workings of U.S. imperialism in the region. This paper seeks to broaden our understanding of U.S. policy through placing it in the multiple contexts of the organization of the global economy, the U.S. strategic position, and the socio-political dynamics of the Middle East. Consequently, the analysis that follows makes two interjections into narratives of U.S. imperialism during the Cold War. First, U.S. imperial power in the Middle East was projected as much on the economic front as it was on the political and military fronts. This economic front extended beyond the petroleum industry and sought to engage with the growth of Middle Eastern economies, the standard of living of the region's population, and the long-term sustainability of economic development that would address both. Second, the 1945-1958 period was a critical juncture in the learning process of U.S. policy-makers of how best to secure U.S. interests in the Middle East. The early stage of the U.S. developmentalist approach had been accompanied by a willingness to work with reformist and revolutionary movements in the region and a corollary ambivalence towards regional status quo forces. By 1958, the limits of what constituted acceptable political and economic reform in the service of development was defined much more restrictively than had previously been the case. It is in the post-1958 period that U.S. policy assumed a zero-sum game strategy towards reformist and revolutionary movements and fully committed itself to an alliance with status quo forces. By exploring broader forms of intervention and tracing the hardening of strategies, this paper questions the static notions of imperialism that dominant narratives of U.S. policy towards the region portray. What emerges is a much more dynamic and flexible nature of the early stages of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.