[Olog-hai]

Operation Nickel Grass was poorly executed and resulted in the 1973 oil crisis, against which no action was taken by the US.

Take note that nobody here is equating Nixon to Carter. (Ironically, Carter was an enemy of Amtrak, cutting its funding by two thirds.)

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

From what I've read about Nickel Grass, it outperformed the Soviet airlift to the Egyptian Army. Nixon signed the EO on 9 October but Washington dithered and it took Nixon to personally decide on 12 October to use Mobile Air Command. I suspect part of the slow start to the execution of the airlift was with Foggy Bottom and Kissinger's dislike of the Israelis. (Though Kissinger fought the Nazi's in WWII, I believe his distinct distaste for Israel may have been from his post-secondary education at Harvard.)

AMC Museum

Air Force Magazine

The US was in a very precarious position regarding energy. Attacking the Arabs to control the oil could have resulted in the Soviets attacking and likely attacks on Israel. I do believe, that at that time, the US should have started doing much more oil exploration in the US and Canada and looking into ways to refine bitumen more economically. Unfortunately, the oil companies continued (and continue) to depend upon easy to produce, M. E. oil.