Oil Industry
The background radiation levels were high enough that no one wanted to risk personnel to go and put out the oil-well fires that now burned across the Middle East. The fires, coupled with the loss in production infrastructure, crippled OPEC in particular and the oil industry at large.
Humans can be so irrational sometimes. They overreact to things and then can’t handle the consequences of their actions. I am intrigued in that they can have such small, uncalculating minds sometimes, yet they are also capable of so much in terms of creativity—though often they are only trying to find creative ways to destroy one another. A fascinating species, to say the least. Take, for example, one of the pivotal events in the collapse leading to World War III.