UNITED NATIONS - When the Shah of Iran, a strongly pro-US ally, was ousted from
power after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the stridently anti-US regime of
Ayatollah Khomeini that captured power inherited a military bonanza: billions
of dollars worth of state-of-the-art weapons provided by the United States.
The US equipment in the Iranian military arsenal at that time included some of
the most advanced jet fighters and reconnaissance aircraft of that generation:
McDonnell Douglas F-4D and F-4E Phantoms, Grumman F-14A Tomcats, Lockheed P-3F
Orions, along with Sidewinder and Harpoon missiles and M47 Patton and M60
battle tanks.
The US administration's decision last month to sell billions of dollars worth
of weapons to potentially unstable Arab nations in the Gulf - including Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain - have triggered fears of possible risks
to the United States, if history repeats itself.
The biggest single arms deal - up to US$60 billion worth of weapons to Saudi
Arabia - has been described as the largest in US history.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan
investigative arm of the US Congress, about $40 billion in arms transfers was
authorized to the six Gulf countries between 2005 and 2009, with Saudi Arabia
and the UAE as the largest recipients.
Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher in the Arms Transfers Programme at the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS there have
been several concerns, most notably relating to Saudi Arabia.
"It is difficult for me to make a proper assessment of the risk that the Saudi
royal house could be toppled and an anti-American or anti-Western government
could take over," he said.
However, the question is a relevant one, he added, as illustrated by the
example of Iran and possibly Iraq in the future.
"Iran still uses US-supplied equipment as part of the backbone of its armed
forces," said Wezeman.
In the case of Iran, large and expensive US arms supplies became a symbol of US
support for the oppressive regime of the Shah and this could be used against
him by his opponents, he added.
"It therefore also remains a question how major spending on arms is perceived
by the general population in the Gulf States," he said.
Despite their role as major suppliers of arms to Iraq in the 1980s, it turned
out that countries like France and Russia had little leverage over Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein in 1990.
The absence of political leverage contradicted one of the arguments used to
justify arms sales, namely that arms suppliers could tighten the screws by
refusing spares and providing maintenance, according to some defense analysts.
Natalie J Goldring, a senior fellow with the Center for Peace and Security
Studies in the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown
University, told IPS that perpetuating the arms race cycle in the Gulf region
has numerous risks.
"One continuing issue is the stability of the Saudi kingdom. If the government
falls, we risk adversaries gaining access to sophisticated US weaponry," she
said.
Goldring was also critical of the rash of new defense contracts with Middle
Eastern nations, including Israel. "The [Barack] Obama administration seems to
be taking one step forward and two steps backward on arms sales," she said.
Last year, the administration announced that it would join negotiations toward
an Arms Trade Treaty, designed to establish international standards for arms
sales. The decision was a welcome reversal of George W Bush administration
policy, Goldring pointed out.
But now, Saudi Arabia has been offered the opportunity to buy more than $60
billion worth of advanced fighter aircraft and military helicopters, as well as
various missiles, bombs and other munitions. This announcement sends precisely
the wrong message to the region, she said.
"This package says that its business as usual in the Middle East, fueling yet
another round in the regional arms race," she said.
The proposed sale to Saudi Arabia has received a great deal of media attention,
perhaps in part because of its enormous size. But far less attention seems to
have been given to the Israeli government signing a recent contract for the new
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, said Goldring.
The F-35 contract is worth less than $3 billion, a relatively small dollar
value when compared to the Saudi proposal. But the F-35 is the next generation
of fighter aircraft, and hasn't even been deployed with US forces yet, she
noted.
If past patterns hold, said Goldring, supplying the F-35 to Israel at the same
time that it is being deployed with US forces will also produce pressure to
design the next generation of fighter aircraft - fueling the upward spiral of
military spending, as well as the Middle East regional arms race.
SIPRI's Wezeman told IPS the large sums of money spent by several Gulf states
obviously mean a risk of major waste.
Such spending, he pointed out, would need to be accompanied by adequate
accountability to determine if and how the spending is connected to clearly
established objectives: to prevent that money is not wasted on unneeded
equipment, to ensure that other sectors are not neglected and to prevent
corruption.
However, there is basically no transparency in arms procurement in the region,
he said.
In finalizing massive arms deals, the United States has hinted that these are
primarily meant to strengthen defenses against a potentially nuclear-armed
neighbor: Iran.
Wezeman said a key question is how arms-supplying states have made their
assessments with regard to the risks involved in supplying arms to Gulf states.
These include future unintended use of the arms within or between countries;
the effect on public opinion in the Gulf region of high military expenditure
and the diversion of resources away from other sectors; and what Iran might do
under pressure of arms supplies to its neighbors.
Iran could either be deterred or be more convinced of a threat from the United
States and its Gulf allies, and therefore divert more resources into the
military to defend itself, Wezeman argued.
Goldring said the independent GAO has recently raised significant concerns over
oversight of US arms transfers. Neither the US State Department nor the
Department of Defense (DOD) consistently documented how arms transfers to Gulf
countries advanced US foreign policy and national security goals.
Announcing a major sale before these concerns have been resolved is another
indication that the Obama administration isn't giving enough attention to the
possible short- and long-term costs of arms sales, in terms of regional arms
races and instability, said Goldring.
"Business as usual is the wrong approach," she declared.
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