US
Arms Sales Preserve Israel’s Edge
By Thalif Deen
07 August, 2007
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS -
When the United States sells state-of-the-art weapons systems to Arab
nations, it invariably provides even more lethal and sophisticated arms
to its steadfast ally, Israel, in order to help counter the firepower
of its neighbours.
So, when Egypt gets the M60A3
and M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, Israel gets the TOW-2A and Hellfire anti-tank
missiles to blow up the Egyptian vehicles — in the event of a
military confrontation between the two countries currently wedded to
the 1979 Camp David peace treaty.
Likewise, when the United
States grudgingly provides McDonnell Douglas F-15 fighter planes to
Saudi Arabia, Israel is armed either with Sidewinder and Sparrow air-to-air
missiles or Hawk and Stinger surface-to-air missiles to bring down the
U.S.-supplied Saudi aircraft.
Every U.S. government has
ensured that no weapons sales to Arab nations would undermine Israel’s
traditional “qualitative (military) advantage” over its
perceived rivals.
Last week, the administration
of President George W. Bush ran true to form when it announced its decision
to simultaneously sell arms both to Israel and seven Arab nations: Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
The package, which is also
expected to include one set of weapons to counter the other, includes
equipment worth some 20 billion dollars to Saudi Arabia and five other
Gulf states, plus 30 billion dollars in military assistance to Israel,
and 13 billion dollars in similar grants to Egypt, mostly for purchases
of U.S.-made weapons systems.
The Bush administration has
justified the whopping arms sales as an attempt to militarily strengthen
Israel, Egypt and the Gulf states against Iran.
But academics, peace activists
and military analysts see a more sinister and commercial reason for
unrestrained arms sales to a politically volatile region.
“The only ‘winners’
from this deal are U.S. weapons contractors,” says Dr. Natalie
J. Goldring, a senior fellow with the Centre for Peace and Security
Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown
University.
“For the U.S. defence
industry, this is Christmas in July,” she added, pointing out
that the Bush administration’s statements that these sales will
somehow deter Iran aren’t convincing.
“Past attempts to label
Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’ only seem to have silenced
moderate voices, and spurred the Iranian government’s conventional
and potential nuclear weapons programmes,” Dr Goldring told IPS.
In addition, she pointed
out, the U.S. government’s record at dissuading countries from
developing nuclear weapons through military means is unblemished by
success.
“Our past non-proliferation
successes have been the product of political, economic, and diplomatic
approaches, not military measures,” she added.
During a swing through the
Middle East last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
the proposed arms sales will also “bolster the forces of moderation
and support a broader strategy to counter the negative influences of
al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.”
Dr. Goldring said Rice fails
to effectively counter the argument that these sales are more likely
to promote instability in the recipient countries because of hostility
toward the United States.
Meanwhile, several U.S. Congressmen,
including Roy Blunt, Jerrold Nadler and Anthony Weiner, have threatened
to block the sale — particularly to Saudi Arabia because the Saudis
“have not been a true ally in further U.S. interests in the Middle
East.”
Whether they will have enough
clout to deter the sale against the powerful military-industrial complex
is left to be seen.
Frida Berrigan, a senior
programme associate with the Arms and Security Project at the New York-based
New America Foundation, predicts that the proposed sale could indeed
trigger a new arms race in the region.
She said new weapon sales
to Egypt and Saudi Arabia will stoke Jordan’s need for new advanced
weaponry. The sultanates’ appetite for new fly-boy weapons is
almost insatiable.
“This move seeks to
repair the damage wrought in the region by the disastrous war in Iraq
by throwing more fuel on the fire — introducing more weaponry
in a region already wracked by a civil-sectarian conflict that ripples
outward in ever widening and devastating circles,” Berrigan told
IPS.
She also said this sends
exactly the wrong message to the Saudi government.
“Quid pro quos in weapons
sales do not work — witness the United States trying to shape
and influence the actions of the Indonesian military regime through
withholding spare parts of F-16s,” Berrigan said.
But the United States is
not even putting conditions on these sales and grants of military aid,
she added.
Asked if it was prudent for
the Bush administration to sell weapons to non-democratic regimes when
it is trying to spread democracy in the region, Berrigan said that of
the eight nations slated for significant increases in military aid,
only one (Israel) is a full democracy.
“The law provides citizens
with the right to change their government peacefully,” according
to the U.S. State Department’s 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices.
In Egypt — despite
its claims of democratic elections — the State Department found
“limitations on the right of citizens to change their government”
including “a state of emergency, in place almost continuously
since 1967.”
The rest of the countries
are monarchies or sultanates where — in the words of the State
Department’s annual report — there is “no right to
peacefully change the government.”
Dr Goldring of Georgetown
University said this sale perpetuates the myth that the U.S. government
can predict the future and say with confidence that governments will
be stable for two, three, four decades.
“Yet again, the Bush
administration is failing to fully take into account the long-term implications
of its actions,” she said.
In the Middle East, she said,
the United States is largely engaged in an arms race with itself. It
seeks to “balance” its interests in the region with ever-increasing
levels of weaponry and military aid.
And the U.S. government continues
to argue that arms sales will stabilise the Middle East, despite the
lack of evidence to support this assertion, she added.
“The administration
claims that the majority of weapons it proposes to sell are defensive.
But if they’re actually defensive, why does this deal reportedly
include constraints on the weapons’ range and where they can be
based?” Dr Goldring asked.
“Adding insult to injury,”
she argued, “the administration is buying off Israel by increasing
its military aid to more than 30 billion dollars over the course of
the next decade.”
Berrigan countered Rice’s
argument that billions in military assistance will “bolster the
forces of moderation” in the region.
Yet the military assistance
will go to countries that brutally suppress their own populations.
Berrigan said all eight nations
named for the aid package, that could top 60 billion dollars over ten
years, have “serious” problems with regards to human rights
including: torture (Qatar, Egypt and Israel where reputable human rights
groups allege that security forces use torture in interrogation of Palestinian
detainees about 20 percent of the time); unlawful killings (Kuwait);
flogging and other forms of corporal punishment (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
and United Arab Emirates); killings, abuse of women including female
genital mutilation (Egypt).
© 2007 Inter Press Service
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