US
Unveils Huge Arms Package
By Patrick Martin
01 August, 2007
WSWS.org
The Bush administration dispatched
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates to the Middle East Monday after announcing plans to funnel a staggering
quantity of US military aid to various client regimes in the region.
A total of $63 billion in arms will be sold or supplied to Israel, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan and five Persian Gulf sheikdoms.
The arms deal breaks new
ground for the US arms industry, which will now supply missile defense
systems, early warning radars, equipment for “smart” weapons,
and other high-tech components that previously have been withheld from
the Arab states in order to guarantee Israeli military superiority.
The giant arms package is
another sign of the pernicious combination of militarism and recklessness
that characterizes American policy in the Middle East. It is also, at
least in part, a response to the desperate crisis brought on by the
failed US occupation of Iraq. The one constant in Washington’s
reaction to rising political tensions and bloody eruptions throughout
the region is more military violence and killing.
The US is selling at least
$20 billion in advanced weapons systems to the Saudis and the five small
Gulf states that are effectively US protectorates—Kuwait, Qatar,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The deal has a dual purpose:
to build up the military power of the Arab states against Iran and to
bribe the Gulf rulers to provide at least a modicum of support for the
US-imposed stooge regime in Iraq.
In order to assuage Israeli
opposition to the proposed sale of high-tech weapons to the Arab states,
the Bush administration agreed to a ten-year extension of US military
subsidies to Israel, at a cost of $30 billion—a 25 percent increase
over the current rate. And to maintain the appearance of balance in
US policy, Washington will supply another $13 billion in weapons and
military aid to Egypt and Jordan.
The arms and military aid
package is yet another exposure of the lies of the Bush administration,
which claims to be waging war for democracy in the Middle East while
it arms to the teeth the various hereditary monarchs, military dictators
and oil sheiks who rule over more than 100 million people and deprive
them of any political rights.
To a large extent, the arms
deal is a direct effort to prop up these antidemocratic rulers against
their own people, who despise them for their corruption and tyranny
and their subservience to American imperialism.
The trip by Rice and Gates
underscores the growing recognition even in the highest circles of the
Bush administration that the war in Iraq has produced a strategic disaster.
The Maliki regime in Baghdad has little authority even in its own country,
and it can hardly serve as a counterweight to Iran, the traditional
role played by Iraq for nearly 40 years under the Baathist dictatorship.
None of the Gulf Arab states
can serve as a guarantor of US security interests in the oil-rich region.
The five sheikdoms are too small and weak, while Saudi Arabia, with
a population comparable to Iraq’s, is saddled with a grossly corrupt
semi-feudal ruling family that is incapable of any serious military
effort and faces a restive Shia minority inhabiting the main centers
of oil production.
Supplying a huge volume of
advanced weapons to these unstable monarchies does little to resolve
the strategic problem facing US imperialism It could even exacerbate
the crisis in the event that some or all of the feudal rulers are overthrown
and replaced by regimes less amenable to US dictates.
Rice and Gates met with officials
from Egypt, Jordan and the six Persian Gulf states on Tuesday at the
Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Rice reiterated, in the course of
several contacts with the press, that Iran was the “single most
important” strategic challenge facing the US in the Middle East.
McClatchy Newspapers noted the bizarre character of this assertion,
since “taken literally, Rice’s comments place US worries
about Iran ahead of concerns over the war in Iraq.”
The effort to demonize the
Iranian regime is part and parcel of the campaign to dragoon the Arab
states behind the US occupation regime in Baghdad The Gulf sheikdoms
have made it clear that they regard the Maliki government as an Iranian
proxy, and Saudi Arabia has been providing support, both financially
and in terms of manpower, for the Sunni insurgents, particularly in
the western province of Anbar on the Iraqi-Saudi border.
By focusing on what Rice
called Iran’s “destabilizing activities,” the Bush
administration hopes to convince the Gulf states that the US will never
permit an Iranian-dominated Iraq and will do whatever is required to
hold onto the territory it invaded in 2003. The Sharm el-Sheikh talks
produced little, however, beyond a statement that repeated previous
verbal commitments to “continue to support Iraq.”
Secretary of Defense Gates
touched on the greatest fear of the US stooge regimes in the Persian
Gulf and throughout the Middle East—that the backlash against
the Iraq war among the American people could hamstring future US military
operations in the region, putting a question mark over the 60-year-old
arrangement under which Washington ensures the security of the oil despots
in return for guaranteed access to the world’s largest petroleum
reserves.
“There clearly is concern
on the part of the Egyptians, and I think it probably represents concern
elsewhere in the region, that the United States will somehow withdraw
precipitously from Iraq, or in some way that is destabilizing to the
entire region,” Gates told reporters after meeting with Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak.
Gates said that the Bush
administration would proceed with the “understanding that this
needs to be done carefully and not leave Iraq in chaos.” The remark
is extraordinary, since it essentially concedes what is generally recognized
throughout the world but never officially acknowledged in Washington—that
American imperialism is facing a catastrophic defeat in Iraq and is
now seeking to salvage what it can.
A key element in the arms
deal is the agreement by Israel to the supply of weapons such as AIM-9X
air-to-air missiles for Saudi and Egyptian fighter aircraft. In 1986,
when a similar arms deal was announced—for similar political reasons,
namely to bolster the Gulf states at the height of the Iran-Iraq War—the
Israeli government opposed the deal and, using its allies in the US
Congress, prevailed on the Reagan administration to drop some weapons
systems from the aid package.
Deputy Secretary of State
Nicholas Burns told reporters in a conference call that the Israeli
cabinet decided Sunday to drop its longstanding opposition to the sale
of high-tech weapons to the Arab states. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert declared, “We understand the need of the United States
to support the Arab moderate states, and there is a need for a united
front between the US and us regarding Iran.”
In what amounts to a quid
pro quo, the Bush administration agreed to raise the annual military
subsidy to Israel from the current $2.4 billion a year to $3 billion,
and extend the support through 2017.
A major factor in the shift
by Israel is the debacle of Olmert’s war last summer against Hezbollah,
which laid waste to much of southern Lebanon but failed either to cripple
the Shiite militia or demonstrate Israeli military dominance. This was
followed by the seizure of power in Gaza by Hamas, another radical Islamic
party allied with Iran, albeit more loosely than Hezbollah.
The Iranian defense minister,
brigadier general Mostaffa Mohammad Najjar, pointed to the influence
of the US military-industrial complex, saying the US government was
“trying to create a false arms race in order to keep their weapons
factories up and running.” This is certainly an element in the
decision, since the armaments industry remains one of the last bastions
of support for the Bush administration.
Democratic congressmen who
are closest to the Zionist lobby, including House Foreign Affairs Committee
Chairman Tom Lantos, issued statements questioning the deal, largely
on the grounds that it threatened to undermine Israeli security. But
Rice reassured such critics, saying that the administration was “responsive
to everyone’s concerns that there not be any shift in the military
balance between the parties in the region.”
Such comments only underscore
the insoluble contradictions in the Bush administration’s foreign
policy. By destroying the regime of Saddam Hussein, the most powerful
Arab state outside of Egypt, the US has smashed the military balance
in the region and set in motion events that it cannot control.
In keeping with the pattern
ever since it took office, the Bush administration is responding to
the problems created by its program of military aggression by escalating
the level of violence. In the face of the debacle in Iraq, it is preparing
for a war with Iran that could engulf the entire Middle East.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.