We have to sell weapons, it's the only industry left in which we are competitive.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. John Stuart Mill

...to stop the flow. In fact they've stemmed the flow considerably - it's just that it is pretty much impossible to stem it completely. They've greatly curtailed the direct flow over the Saudi-Iraq border but, in the absence of banning travel out of Saudi completely, it's going to be pretty tough to do a huge amount more. They've absolutely hammered the hardline radical infrastructure in the country - the sad truth is that the guys who are going over to Iraq are guys that aren't that "out there" in their radicalism; there's not a lot of basis to discriminate them from many, many other folks before they pop up driving a VBIED in Anbar. More than anything, it's a measure of how unpopular Iraq is in the eyes of the Saudi population.

Looked at objectively, from their context, the Saudis are showing great restraint - compare the numbers of guys going over now to the number of guys that headed to Afghanistan in previous decades. Rather than divest themselves of these potential internal threats as has been practice previously, they're trying to keep them in country while simultaneously fighting the gravest terrorist threats of the Kingdom's history. They'd have to be fools to close that pipeline down completely - you do that, you lose your ability to track it, you lose your ability to potentially influence it in time of future need, and you lose a critical escape valve for the Kingdom.

There's a lot to blame the Kingdom can and should justly wear, but it's a lot more complicated than the morality tale being sold right now by pols of all suasions - not least, the USG over a period of decades and with strong bipartisan influence signed off on many of the measures that have led us here and kept a judicious silence when they served US interests; much of what Saudi should wear is also a garment of red white and blue.

One need be extremely cautious in the weapons deals in the Gulf region right now. There's a lot of money out there with the oil price hike and these guys view themselves as being under increased threat - all the more so because of their concerns that the US, having destabilized things, may show significant reluctance to intervene in the future due to domestic concerns. They are damned sure going to buy new systems - if the US refuses to deal, they'll buy them from some other source. Personally, I'd rather that the US continue to be engaged and sell them small numbers of expensive systems, rather than someone else (say, China) sell them large numbers of less expensive systems that will then result in a proliferation problem that's even worse. This is primarily an issue for the Gulf states, but the issues with Saudi are somewhat similar. Their over-riding concern over the past couple of decades has been the loyalty of the United States as a security partner - I'm pretty unsure that now is the time to be sending a message of ambivalence.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

submitted to newswire by Brovalight

U.S. Plans New Arms Sales to Gulf Allies

Robin Wright | WaPo

The Bush administration will announce next week a series of arms deals worth at least $20 billion to Saudi Arabia and five other oil-rich Persian Gulf states as well as new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt, a move to shore up allies in the Middle East and counter Iran's rising influence, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The arms deals, which include the sales of a variety of sophisticated weaponry, would be the largest negotiated by this administration. The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over 10 years, the officials said. Both figures represent significant increases in military support.

foot soldiers but the enormous flow of money coming out of Saudi Arabia for financing radical Islamic groups that is the principal issue, surely. An excellent report in the WSJ highlights the (ongoing) problems:

TERROR FINANCE
U.S. Tracks Saudi Bank
Favored by Extremists

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia -- In the 1940s, two Bedouin farm boys from the desert began changing money for the trickle of traders and religious pilgrims in this then-remote and barren kingdom. It was a business built on faith and trust, Sulaiman Al Rajhi once told an interviewer, and for many years he would hand gold bars to strangers boarding flights in Jidda and ask them to give the gold to his brother on their arrival in Riyadh.
EXTREMISTS' ACCOUNTS

The News: U.S. intelligence reports say Islamic extremists often use Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank to move money. The bank has denounced terrorism and denies any role in financing extremists.
The Issue: A confrontation with Al Rajhi would be politically difficult for Saudi monarchy, and U.S. isn't satisfied with its efforts to curb the financial infrastructure essential to terrorism.
Result: U.S. has periodically debated taking action on its own against the bank, but chosen instead to lobby the Saudis quietly about its concerns.

Today, Mr. Al Rajhi is a reclusive octogenarian whose fortune is estimated at $12 billion. And Al Rajhi Bank grew into the kingdom's largest Islamic bank, with 500 branches in Saudi Arabia and more spread across the Muslim world.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the bank also set off an intense debate within the U.S. government over whether to take strong action against its alleged role in extremist finance. Confidential reports by the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. agencies, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, detail for the first time how much the U.S. learned about the use of Al Rajhi Bank by alleged extremists, and how U.S. officials agonized over what to do about it.

After 9/11, the Saudi monarchy pledged its full support in the fight against global terrorism. And following violent attacks inside the kingdom in the next two years, the Saudis did launch major strikes against militants operating on their soil. But the Saudi government has been far been less willing to tackle the financial infrastructure essential to terrorism. U.S. intelligence reports state that Islamic banks, while mostly doing ordinary commerce, also are institutions that extremism relies upon in its global spread.

As a result, the Bush administration repeatedly debated proposals for taking strong action itself against Al Rajhi Bank, in particular, according to former U.S. officials and previously undisclosed government documents. Ultimately, the U.S. always chose instead to lobby Saudi officialdom quietly about its concerns.

The U.S. intelligence reports, heretofore secret, describe how Al Rajhi Bank has maintained accounts and accepted donations for Saudi charities that the U.S. and other nations have formally designated as fronts for al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

In addition, Mr. Al Rajhi and family members have been major donors to Islamic charities that are suspected by Western intelligence agencies of funding terrorism, according to CIA reports and federal-court filings by the Justice Department.

A 2003 CIA report claims that a year after Sept. 11, with a spotlight on Islamic charities, Mr. Al Rajhi ordered Al Rajhi Bank's board "to explore financial instruments that would allow the bank's charitable contributions to avoid official Saudi scrutiny."

A few weeks earlier, the report says, Mr. Al Rajhi "transferred $1.1 billion to offshore accounts -- using commodity swaps and two Lebanese banks -- citing a concern that U.S. and Saudi authorities might freeze his assets." The report was titled "Al Rajhi Bank: Conduit for Extremist Finance."

Al Rajhi Bank and the Al Rajhi family deny any role in financing extremists. They have denounced terrorist acts as un-Islamic. The bank declined to address specific allegations made in American intelligence and law-enforcement records, citing client confidentiality.
(much more, with links...)
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118530038250476405.html

The issue remains: do these financiers operate with the tacit approval - or at least with studied ignorance - of the House of Saud? Several Wahabist so-called "charitable" organisations have their support amongst several Saudi princes, and the US absolutely knows this. Since the days of "Bandar Bush" working his magic with Bush, Sr., the US has been willing to put up with these activities in exchange for Saudi help in "stabilising" oil prices, purchasing billions in arms, and - until 2003 - hosting large US military basing, among other "friendly acts". So, let's not go all non-linear on "Saudi complicity with Islamic terrorism", as it has been US policy for years to studiously ignore the evidence and concentrate on the "good news".

So, we're "balancing" by granting Israel a $30 billion dollar arms sale. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a tad too much for both countries? Won't they resell some of it to, say, Russia?

House Members Say They Will Try to Block Arms Sales to Saudis

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 29, 2007; A06

The Bush administration's plan to sell $20 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries is running into congressional opposition and criticism from human rights and arms control groups.

Members of Congress vowed yesterday to oppose any deal to Saudi Arabia on grounds that the kingdom has been unhelpful in Iraq and unreliable at fighting terrorism. King Abdullah has called the U.S. military presence in Iraq an "illegitimate occupation," and the Saudis have been either unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq, congressional sources say.

Human rights groups warned that new U.S. arms meant to contain Iran's rising influence could backfire, allowing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to rally greater support for his hard-line faction in the run-up to parliamentary elections next spring.

And arms control groups said Bush's strategy would accelerate an already-dangerous trend that could increase tensions rather than generate a greater sense of security.

The administration plans to sell advanced satellite-guided bombs, fighter aircraft upgrades and new naval vessels to six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, U.S. officials say.

U.S. officials acknowledged that congressional reaction has been mixed but cautioned that details of a broader arms package -- including $30 billion in military aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over the next 10 years -- have yet to be released. "As we move forward, we will work very closely with Congress, as well as our friends and allies in the region," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

But Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was briefed on the deal Tuesday, said he had several reservations. "This is not a sale at Macy's that you go in and buy a bunch of stuff. There are a complex set of relationships behind it, and while it's very desirable to have the Saudis and others recognize that Iran is an existential threat, there is also a degree of responsibility that they have to show on broader U.S. foreign policy interests," he said in an interview.

In the context of the arms deals, Lantos said the oil-rich countries should use windfall profits from high oil prices to cover the expenses of Iraqi refugees who have flooded Jordan. Saudi Arabia should not try to re-broker reconciliation between Palestinian moderates and militants, he added, and Qatar should look at the television network al-Jazeera's role in the region.

Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said yesterday that they will introduce a joint resolution of disapproval to block the deals when Congress is formally notified. They have seven Democratic co-sponsors.

In an interview, Weiner said any arms proposal would find broad bipartisan opposition on the Hill. "The reputation of the Saudis has taken quite a beating since 9/11, and despite the fact that the administration has done everything to portray them as part of the moderate Arab world, members of Congress of both parties are increasingly skeptical."

Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, Congress must approve major arms sales. In 1986, the threat of a joint resolution of disapproval played a role in persuading the Reagan administration to cut back an arms package to Saudi Arabia.

Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the House Foreign Relations committee who was also briefed last week, said a pivotal issue will be whether Israel maintains the "qualitative military edge" in the region.

Arms experts called for a serious debate on the quality and quantity of weapons going to the Gulf states. "This administration does not have an arms sales policy, except to sell, sell, sell," said Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association. "That approach in the Middle East can be like throwing gasoline on a brush fire."

Human Rights Watch said the arms deals would undermine long-term U.S. goals in the Middle East. "This will reduce pressure on Egypt and the Arab states to reform their politics. It's another case of trying to purchase stability at the expense of liberty," said Washington director Tom Malinowski.

Original Content at OP-ED News

July 28, 2007

To Hell with Gandhi and Jesus, We've Opted for Attila

By Jim Freeman

I know all about realities of the times and military parity and supporting our dwindling allies, so don’t accuse me of being a peacenik (although there are worse things to be called). According to Robin Wright of the Washington Post,

The Bush administration will announce next week a series of arms deals worth at least $20 billion to Saudi Arabia and five other oil-rich Persian Gulf states as well as new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt, a move to shore up allies in the Middle East and counter Iran's rising influence, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Another bad idea from the administration from hell, the guys (and women) who have proved themselves unable to get anything right. As a sort of ‘so long, see ya later’ gesture on their way out of the Oval office, they’re going to arm Saudi Arabia to the teeth and balance off the Bobbsey Twins of Middle East stability--Israel and Egypt--against each other. An additional $20 billion in armaments for the hornets we stirred up. In case they run out of Stingers.

That ought to win George Bush the Nobel Peace Prize.

Our soldiers and Marines are being killed on a daily basis in Afghanistan and Iraq by armaments we sold those countries not all that long ago. The piles of weaponry looted from unguarded Iraqi arms depots were put there on a handshake from Donald Rumsfeld. The IEDs that have become the weapon of choice for killing our troops are mostly put together from the stuff we gave Saddam during the Iraq-Iran war. That’s an inconvenient truth that Bush tries to deflect by pointing at Iran.

Lest I be criticized as merely anti-Bush, Democratic presidents have been piling this same stuff into the hotspots of the world ever since WWII. Equal-opportunity criminality on the part of past and present administrations. The cold war was blamed and then, when the cold war got over with and we had that brief argument about what to do with the ‘peace dividend,’ the armament boys panicked and convinced Washington that everyone was a threat and we better get back to business as usual.

Business as usual put AK-47s in the willing hands of 12 and 14 year-old kids in Africa, where you can now be knocked off for the shoes you’re wearing, to say nothing of a car, wristwatch or wallet. Somalia is such a hotspot we only send Ethiopian troops there and Darfur in the Sudan has become Nicholas Kristof’s life project. We run when our Marine barracks in Lebanon is blown up because everyone there has a gun and everyone there hates us.

It makes me nostalgic for the good old days of British colonial rule. Colonialism, for all its bad press, was more about plundering resources, cricket and polo than it was murdering the natives. The Brits (never NRA types) didn’t believe in arming the natives and if ‘natives’ offends you as being politically incorrect, what the hell else would you call the Sunni-Shiite madmen of the Middle East?

more

Jul. 29, 2007 12:30 | Updated Jul. 29, 2007 12:38
'US comitted to our military supremacy'

By JPOST.COM STAFF

The US remains committed to ensuring Israel's military supremacy over Arab countries, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during Sunday morning's cabinet meeting.

Olmert confirmed that during his meeting with US President George Bush last month, it was agreed that Washington would increase its military aid to Israel by 30 million dollars, a boost of 25 percent.

The prime minister went on to say that the adoption of a report on the long-term defense budget would ensure that the defense establishment's funding would not be dependent on the economic opportunities in the next decade.

Olmert also told ministers that he was committed to approving a budget plan to improve the economic condition of Holocaust survivors.

"There will be an addition of millions of shekels that will be allocated to Holocaust survivors," said the prime minister, adding that the aim of the allocation was so that "there will not be anyone who cannot live with dignity."

Israeli PM announces 30 billion US dollar US defence aid
07.29.07, 6:47 AM ET

JERUSALEM (Thomson Financial) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that the US has agreed a 25 percent increase in its military and defence aid to Israel, to 30 billion US dollars in the next 10 years.

'In my last meeting with the president of the United States, we agreed that the aid would stand at 30 billion dollars over the next 10 years, meaning over three billion dollars a year, starting next year,' he said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.

'This is an increase of over 25 percent in the military and defence aid of the United States to Israel,' he added.

Olmert described the new package as a considerable improvement and a very important element for the security of Israel. Current US defence aid to Israel stands at 2.4 billion dollars a year.

US President George W. Bush, whom Olmert last met in Washington on June 19, gave him assurances 'to keep the qualitative edge between us (Israel) and the other states (in the region),' the Israeli premier said.

'Other than the increase in aid, we received an explicit and detailed commitment to guarantee Israel's qualitative advantage over other Arab states.

'We understand the United States' desire to help moderate states which stand at a united front with the United States and Israel in the struggle against Iran,' he added.

A senior US defence official said on Saturday that Washington is readying a major arms package for Saudi Arabia with an eye to countering the changing threat from Tehran, Israel's arch foe.

The Pentagon provided no details on the arms package, which will reportedly total 20 billion dollars over the next decade.

But it will include new weapons for the United Arab Emirates, and military and economic support to Egypt, officials said.

The deal is intended to strengthen US allies in the Middle East and counter the perceived threat from Iran, whose nuclear activities have provoked major concern in Israel and the US.

Israel has reacted cautiously to the reported Saudi package.

'We have no doubt that the United States would not do anything that could endanger the security of Israel,' Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin told Agence France-Presse Sunday.

afp/jg

US 'Pouring Oil on Fire' With Middle East Arms Sales

The US government seems to have stopped talking about exporting democracy and is resorting instead to good old-fashioned weapons sales to Middle East allies to keep Iran in check, say German media commentators. Those sales could backfire, newspapers warn.

follow the links to see what the German papers say

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,497188,00.html

Iran Criticizes U.S., Saudis Arms Deal

By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Monday, July 30, 2007; 6:24 AM

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's foreign ministry spokesman on Monday criticized a U.S. plan to sell state-of-the-art weapons to Saudi Arabia, saying it would undermine security in the Middle East, the state broadcasting company reported.

Mohammad Ali Hosseini's comments followed reports last week that the U.S. planned to sell Saudi Arabia an estimated $20 billion of sophisticated weaponry, including advanced air systems that would greatly enhance the striking ability of Saudi warplanes.

"What the Persian Gulf region needs is stability and security," Hosseini was quoted as saying on the Web site of the state broadcasting company. "Americans have been trying to disturb it by selling weapons to the region."

Administration officials have also said the U.S. will extend additional aid to other friendly nations in the Middle East, including Israel and Egypt.

The proposed weapons sales and aid packages are intended to strengthen U.S. allies at a time of uncertainty in the Middle East, officials have said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. They also help counteract Iran's rising influence in the region.

The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons and supporting Shiite militias in Iraq, charges Tehran denies. The Sunni-led governments of the Middle East are also wary of Shiite Iran's growing power, and Israel views the country as its principal enemy.

Hosseini accused the U.S. on Monday of inflaming tensions in the region to further its weapons sales.

"Americans have pursued a particular policy in the region: creation of fear and concern among regional countries in order to prepare an opportunity for selling arms," he was quoted as saying.

more

Another Poke in the Eye to Islam

The political debate has already begun over the Bush administration's recently announced $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations. And it's already clear that it's missing the point.

Some members of Congress have vowed to block the sale, pointing to the Saudis' lack of help in the Iraq war, its continued lackluster counterterrorism efforts and its hostility toward Israel. In part to offset such criticism, the administration plans an even bigger $30 billion package for Israel.

But these arguments are so, well, Old War. There isn't one weapon in the package that will enhance American interests or security -- or Saudi security, for that matter -- and there certainly isn't one that threatens Israel. The real threat is the army of contractors and U.S. service members that will have to go to Saudi Arabia to support the deal. They will just fuel more Arab anger and more terrorism.

As part of the deal, Saudi Arabia will get upgrades for its American-made fighters, new air-to-air missiles, new naval vessels and a supply of satellite-guided air-delivered bombs. Along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are receiving advanced equipment and weaponry.

Administration officials say the advanced arms are intended to bolster the ability of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf militaries to counter Iran. They also insist that most of the arms are "defensive" in nature. Aren't they all.

To punctuate the defensive element, U.S. officials say the United States will seek assurances from Saudi Arabia that it will not store its new Joint Direct Attack Munitions -- the satellite-guided bombs -- at northern air bases, where they could threaten Israel.

Israel needn't worry. The Saudi military is even less dangerous than the gang who couldn't shoot straight. After gazillions in arms sales during the heyday of oil, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia demonstrated that it was nt capable, even with its advanced American-supplied military, of defending its country. When Desert Storm unfolded in 1991, the Saudi military was well shielded behind the American armed forces: Saudi ground forces were given a sector to operate in where they wouldn't get in the way. Through terrorist attacks in the mid-1990s and the rise of terrorism, the Saudi "military" proved unable to protect itself, let alone the country.
...
What comes with the deal, though, is far more subtle trouble: Saudi Arabia has demonstrated over decades that it has no interest in building up its own high-tech arms capabilities. American contractors will train, maintain and even operate the new Saudi equipment. American military personnel will follow. We will buy nothing in terms of security, and we will just put our own people in danger. But most important, we will once again renew the cycle of American penetration into the heart of Islam, one of Osama bin Laden's original and most compelling rallying points. That's why the Saudi deal is so dangerous.

http://tinyurl.com/2hw7dv

"He who doesn't understand history is doomed to relive...", etc., etc.

but have you ever considered what the Middle east wants to see?

US arms package will not destabilise Middle East, says Rice

SHANNON, Ireland: A multi-billion dollar US arms package for Middle East allies aimed at containing Iran's influence will not destabilise the region, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

The weapons packages bound for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and Israel would not tilt the fragile military and strategic balance in the oil-rich region, said Rice.

She dismissed Iran's charges that the arms package would create fear and dampen relations between countries in the Middle East, turning the accusation back on Tehran.

"I think if there is a destabilisation of the region, that can be laid at the feet of an Iranian regime that is engaging in the kind of activities that I just outlined," she told reporters aboard a plane taking her to Egypt.

Earlier, she had accused Iran of fuelling terrorism in Lebanon; backing and providing technologies to Shiite militias in Iraq; aiding Hamas in the Palestinian territories; and harbouring ambitions of acquiring nuclear weapons.

"It's a very serious set of challenges," Rice said, before her plane stopped over at Shannon airport on the way to the region.

"There isn't a doubt, I think, that Iran constitutes the single-most important single-country strategic challenge to the US's interests in the Middle East -- and to the kind of Middle East we want to see."

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Karim Sadjadpour | August 3 | Washington D.C.

IHT - The announcement this week that the United States plans to sell over $20 billion worth of weaponry to Arab allies in order to counter Iran's ascendance in the Middle East appears to take a page out of Ronald Reagan's Cold War playbook: Simultaneously attempt to contain Iran and force it to spend money on an arms race instead of developing its moribund economy, intimidating it into bankruptcy.

One major flaw in this approach, however, is that it doesn't recognize that Iran's growing influence is due not to its impressive military force or expenditures (Saudi Arabia already spends four times as much as Iran), but rather its use of soft power and militias throughout the region in order to undercut the vastly superior hard power of the United States and Israel. Further arming Iran's Arab neighbors with billions of dollars of high-tech equipment (much of which they won't know how to use) does nothing to remedy this conundrum.

In the Cold War paradigm invoked by some Bush administration officials, Iran is the new Soviet Union and Iranian-backed extremists are the new Communists. While such an approach overstates Iran's global power and influence, on a regional level there are indeed Cold War parallels. Tehran and Washington both openly aspire to change the Middle East with competing ideologies, and both view conflicts in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and the Gulf as fronts in a larger war for the soul of the region.

Similar to Moscow, Tehran has generously armed and funded militant groups ever since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. As opposed to the Soviet Union, however, today Iran's preferred vehicle of choice to spread its power and influence throughout the Middle East is, ironically, democratic elections. Though Iran's clerical rulers refuse to hold free and fair elections at home, the strong electoral showings of Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shiite co-religionists in Iraq, has Tehran confident that their Islamist friends have won the battle for the region's hearts and minds, while Western-oriented liberals are in retreat. In the words of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, "Today, if a referendum is held in any Islamic country, the people will vote for individuals supporting Islam and opposing the United States."

Khamenei has a point. Opinion polls conducted among Arabs frequently rank Iran's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, and the Hamas leader Khaled Mish'al as the three most popular political figures in the region. These same surveys show nearly 80 percent of Egyptians and Jordanians have an unfavorable view of the United States. While the alarming depth of anti-Americanism in the Arab world could in the past be dismissed as a societal affliction with little tangible political costs, by pushing a democratic agenda in the Middle East the Bush administration has provided a concrete outlet for this rage.

[Comment: Much more of worth at link. ~ JPD]

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent