COMMENTARY: Huge Arab Arms Buy Is Puzzling
By Joseph J. Honick
Bainbridge Island, WA (HNN) - Claiming the move is to buy protection against Iran, the Arab states
of the Gulf have embarked on a $123 billion weapons buy from America.
Even Saudi Arabia’s media question the dimension of the buy and the
secrecy that surrounded it.
The question that has not surfaced from happy arms manufacturers in the United States, however, is what will the Arabs do with all that stuff since they hardly put in a buck or a platoon to help fight the Iraqi concerns for almost a decade? When the conflict was hottest, the cost in people, arms and commitment fell to NATO forces and mostly to American taxpayers.
Why the secrecy? Would the Obama administration not have been boasting the event to look good to the Congress, Americans who have seen the money go in one direction to the tune of more than a trillion dollars?
There are more questions than anyone wants to answer.
According to the Financial Times, the arms sales are “to reinforce the level of regional deterrence and help reduce the size of forces the U.S. must deploy in the region.”
One can only hope the spokesperson who made that statement was holding his nose given the reality those same Arab states were nowhere to be found in fortifying our forces and those of our NATO allies.
Further, according to the Times, the Arab states fear that any Israeli or U.S. military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities could provoke retaliation against them or, and here is the real story, disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. In other words, if someone else had the guts to get rid of the Iranian nuclear threat, the Arab states might have to stand up for themselves.
In 1981, when Israeli fighters knocked out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear facility, these same Arab states joined the international condemnation of the effort that may have saved untold lives…and still those same states failed to lend their own forces to help wage the eventual conflict.
The primary delighted suppliers are Boeing and Lockheed. Boeing mainly will supply 85 new F-15 jet fighters and another 70 will be upgraded. The United Arab Emirates received clearance to buy Thaad, a high altitude missile defense system from Lockheed.
As the announcement was made, not one word was uttered wondering where the same Arab states have been for nearly the decade we have spent American taxpayer dollars at record rates. Nor was there any mention of our having sent hundreds of thousands of men and women to defend not only the 400 mile Saudi border but other Iraqi neighbors while reaping not even a penny in return or a share in any of the rehabilitated Iraqi oil fields.
When I wrote recently that Afghanistan was a happy war for defense contractors, I could not have known just how happy this whole affair has turned out to be for those corporations but hardly for those who have been confronting harsh economic realities in the current and seemingly endless recession.
What will our president and defense secretary have to say? But more than that: how will this huge deal impact the already shaky peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Authority while Hamas stands ready to challenge militarily any successful deal?
There are far too many questions that already occupied the minds of many analysts before his deal was announced.
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications, including huntingtonnews.net. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com. This commentary was published in O'Dwyer's PR Report and is reprinted with permission from O'Dwyer's.