On Monday, the Bush administration officially announced its plan to provide advanced weapons worth billions to friendly states in the Persian Gulf in order to curb growing Iranian influence in the region. Washington plans to sell $20 billion worth of satellite-guided bombs, and fighter and naval upgrades to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates over the next 10 years. A further $13 billion is pledged to Egypt, and Israel will remain, with $30 billion in arms aid, the greatest recipient in the Middle East of American largesse. The German government's coordinator for transatlantic relations voiced his concerns regarding the plan in a radio interview on Tuesday. "I don't see the point of arming the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia with more weapons," said Karsten Voigt. "The region is not suffering from a lack of weapons, but from a lack of stability." German editorial writers agreed, pointing to Saudi links to the insurgency in Iraq and international terrorism.
The conservative Die Welt writes:
"With its plans for weapons shipments worth billions to the Gulf states, Washington has now made it official: The democratization of the Middle East is no longer the focus of American foreign policy. In the name of limiting Iran's influence and restoring stability in the region, the US is returning to a Cold War strategy: The enemy of my enemy is my friend." "But doubts about whether this strategy is prudent in the case of Saudi Arabia can be heard beyond Israel and Europe. Many within the US administration are also convinced that international Islamic terrorism is something akin to the Saudis' exported civil war. Why else would half the foreign fighters traveling to Iraq be Saudis? And of the 19 men responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks, 15 were from Saudi Arabia. From Cologne to Karachi, Saudi embassies very openly operate Wahhabite Koran schools -- the most rigid, backward and dangerous form of Islam." "The strategy's effectiveness is very doubtful. In the 1980s, people placed their bets on Osama bin Ladin, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein when it came to dealing with the Soviets and Iran. Today we are struggling with the bloody consequences of those strategies. Courting Saudi Arabia is unwise and dangerous."
The left-wing Die Tageszeitung writes:
"The only thing the Bush administration has left to offer after six and a half years in power is a mixture of fear, helplessness and panic. Out of acute desperation, the US government now wants to provide help and weapons deals over the next 10 years to the countries that are best able to launch a new arms race in the region. No one can seriously believe that the already weapons-satiated Mideast can be satisfied or held in check by yet more weapons." "If Congress approves the plan, the Bush government's already appalling foreign policy record will only get worse. The only clearly identifiable victor would be the US defense industry -- which, incidentally, has considerable influence in Washington." Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung uses the weapons deal to look at a broader worsening of relations between the US and Riyadh: "No other country in the Middle East is further from the democratic ideals preached by the US than Saudi Arabia. Mildly put, the human rights situation doesn't meet Western standards." "And beyond political realism, the (current) king is far less pro-American than his brother, who ruled before him ... The cooling of relations was most obvious when Abdallah described the US presence in Iraq at the last Arab Summit in Riyadh as an 'illegal foreign occupation.' Last fall, the king warned he would attack in Iraq if a civil war were to ensue after a withdrawal of US troops. But that's not the only point of irritation. Washington is also displeased about the Saudis' desire to create a nuclear partnership with Pakistan even if, as the Saudi's claim, it would be limited to the exchange of information."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,497428,00.html
JPTF 1/08/2007
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