BY FLYNT LEVERETT, HILLARY MANN LEVERETT | AUGUST 11, 2010
Jeffrey Goldberg's new article in the Atlantic is deeply reported -- and deeply wrong about the Middle East. But it's his misunderstanding of America that is most dangerous of all.
Amid widespread skepticism that sanctions will stop Tehran's nuclear development and grudging, belated recognition that the Green Movement will not deliver a more pliable Iranian government, a growing number of commentators are asking the question, "What does President Obama do next on Iran?"
For hawks, the answer is war. Last month, in The Weekly Standard, Reuel Marc Gerecht made the case for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear targets. With the publication of Jeffrey Goldberg's "The Point of No Return" in the Atlantic, the campaign for war against Iran is now arguing that the United States should attack so Israel won't have to.
To be sure, Goldberg never explicitly writes that "the United States should bomb Iran." But he argues that, unless Israel is persuaded that Obama will order an attack, "there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July." And Goldberg's Israeli interlocutors readily acknowledge that the United States could mount a far more robust air campaign against Iranian nuclear targets than Israel could. A much more limited Israeli strike "may cause Iran to redouble its efforts-this time with a measure of international sympathy-to create a nuclear arsenal [and] cause chaos for America in the Middle East," he acknowledges. Goldberg believes the Obama administration understands that "perhaps the best way to obviate a military strike on Iran is to make the threat of a strike by the Americans seem real." But there is a clear implication that, if threat alone does not work, better for the United States to pull the trigger than Israel.
Goldberg's reporting on Israeli thinking about Iran -- reflecting interviews with "roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers" -- including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- is exemplary. Unlike Gerecht, Goldberg does not skirt the potentially negative consequences of war. But Goldberg's reporting also reveals that the case for attacking Iran -- especially for America to attack so Israel won't -- is even flimsier than the case Goldberg helped make for invading Iraq in 2002, in a New Yorker article alleging that "the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought."
Goldberg's case for war on Iran starts with the Holocaust -- and a view of the Islamic Republic as a latter-day Third Reich, under ideologically obsessed, anti-Semitic leadership to which "rational deterrence theory ... might not apply." Israelis across the political spectrum have bought the argument that Iran is an "existential threat," he writes. But, as Goldberg himself acknowledges, this is not true. He recounts his realization of the "contradiction" captured in a photograph of Israeli fighter planes flying over Auschwitz that he saw "in more than a dozen different offices" at Israel's defense ministry:
"If the Jewish physicists who created Israel's nuclear arsenal could somehow have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and sent a squadron of fighters back to 1942, then the problem of Auschwitz would have been solved in 1942. In other words, the creation of a serious Jewish military capability-a nuclear bomb, say, or the Israeli air force-during World War II would have meant a quicker end to the Holocaust. It is fair to say, then, that the existence of the Israeli air force, and of Israel's nuclear arsenal, means axiomatically that the Iranian nuclear program is not the equivalent of Auschwitz." (emphasis added)
Moreover, the Islamic Republic is not Hitler's Germany, particularly regarding Jews. No matter how many anti-Zionist or even anti-Semitic quotes Gerecht, Goldberg, and others may marshal from Iranian politicians, inconvenient realities undermine the Islamic Republic/Third Reich analogy: Roughly 25,000-30,000 Jews continue living in Iran, with civil status equal to other Iranians and a constitutionally guaranteed parliamentary seat. It is illegal in the Islamic Republic for Muslims to consume alcohol --but Jews (and Christians) are permitted wine for religious ceremonies and personal consumption. Iranian politicians frequently question Israel's legitimacy and predict demographics will ultimately produce a "one-state" solution in Palestine. It's true that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made provocative statements questioning the Holocaust. But neither Ahmadinejad nor any other Iranian leader has threatened to destroy Israel by initiating military conflict.
Fixating on Ahmadinejad's rhetoric obscures the fact that normalized U.S.-Iranian relations would profoundly benefit Israel -- just as Henry Kissinger's engagement with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the 1970s decisively changed regional dynamics to preclude any possibility of another generalized Arab-Israeli war. It is only in retrospect that Sadat -- an open admirer of Hitler who worked with Germany against Britain during World War II and not only made vicious anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic statements but launched a war that killed and injured thousands of Israelis -- is depicted as a "man of peace."
Goldberg ascribes Netanyahu's concern about the "existential threat" from Iran to the influence of Netanyahu's father -- a revisionist scholar who upended historiography of the Spanish Inquisition by focusing on its anti-Semitic roots. But Netanyahu père's worldview does not permit rational calculation of threat or diplomatic contributions to Israel's security. Ben Zion Netanyahu opposed Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin over peace with Egypt and, in an interview last year, said of Arabs that they are "an enemy by essence ... [T]he only thing that might move the Arabs from the rejectionist position is force."
This is a strategically obtuse outlook, the influence of which on the current Israeli government's decision-making can only be pernicious. But Goldberg's reporting on his conversations with Israeli generals, national-security policymakers, and politicians makes clear that, in fact, those at the top of Israel's political order understand Iran's nuclear program is not an "existential threat." His interlocutors recognize Iran is unlikely to invite its own destruction by attacking Israel directly. Rather, they say, a nuclear Iran "will progressively undermine [Israel's] ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens," according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
"The real threat to Zionism is the dilution of quality," Barak tells Goldberg. "Jews know that they can land on their feet in any corner of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place, such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life, that even American Jewish young people want to come here ... Our young people can consciously decide to go other places [and] stay out of here by choice."
Ephraim Sneh, retired general and former deputy defense minister, also describes the non-existential nature of the Iranian "threat":
"[Israelis] are good citizens, and brave citizens, but the dynamics of life are such that if ... someone finishes a Ph.D. and they are offered a job in America, they might stay there ... The bottom line is that we would have an accelerated brain drain."
In other words, Israeli elites want the United States to attack Iran's nuclear program -- with the potentially negative repercussions that Goldberg acknowledges -- so that Israel will not experience "a dilution of quality" or "an accelerated brain drain." Sneh argues that "if Israel is no longer understood by its 6 million Jewish citizens, and by the roughly 7 million Jews who live outside of Israel, to be a ‘natural safe haven', then its raison d'être will have been subverted."
To be sure, the United States has an abiding commitment to Israel's security. But, just as surely, preventing "dilution of quality" or bolstering Israelis' perceptions regarding their country's raison d'être can never give an American president a just or strategically sound cause for initiating war. And make no mistake: Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would mean war.
Netanyahu himself admits that the challenges posed by a nuclear Iran "are more subtle than a direct attack," noting that "you'd create a sea change in the balance of power in our area." This is another major point in the Israeli case for war that deserves unpacking -- and debunking. Goldberg points out that "Persian and Jewish civilizations have not forever been enemies." In fact, the Islamic Republic and Israel have not forever been enemies. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel -- over Washington's objections -- sold weapons to Iran, and was involved in U.S. President Ronald Reagan's subsequent outreach to Tehran (which imploded in the Iran-Contra scandal).
However, Israeli-Iranian geopolitical dynamics changed with the Cold War's end, the Soviet Union's collapse, and the removal of Iraq's military as a factor in the regional balance of power through the first Gulf War. Since then, Israel has deemed Iran its principal rival for regional hegemony -- and the Islamic Republic views what it sees as Israel's hegemonic ambitions as threatening its vital interests.
Israeli elites want to preserve a regional balance of power strongly tilted in Israel's favor and what an Israeli general described to Goldberg as "freedom of action" --the freedom to use force unilaterally, anytime, for whatever purpose Israel wants. The problem with Iranian nuclear capability -- not just weapons, but capability -- is that it might begin constraining Israel's currently unconstrained "freedom of action." In May, retired Israeli military officers, diplomats, and intelligence officials conducted a war game that assumed Iran had acquired "nuclear weapons capability." Participants subsequently told Reuters that such capability does not pose an "existential threat" to Israel -- but "would blunt Israel's military autonomy."
One may appreciate Israel's desire to maximize its military autonomy. But, in an already conflicted region, Israel's assertion of military hegemony is itself a significant contributor to instability and the risk of conflict. Certainly, maximizing Israel's freedom of unilateral military initiative is not a valid rationale for the United States to start a war with Iran. Just imagine how Obama would explain such reasoning to the American people.
So, what should Obama do? Goldberg concludes with a story told by Israeli President Shimon Peres about Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. When Ben-Gurion met U.S. president-elect John F. Kennedy in late 1960, Kennedy asked what he could do for Israel. Ben-Gurion replied, "What you can do is be a great president of the United States."
Regarding Iran, what constitutes "greatness" for Obama? Clearly, Obama will not achieve greatness by acquiescing to another fraudulently advocated and strategically damaging war in the Middle East. He could, however, achieve greatness by doing with Iran what Richard Nixon did with Egypt and China -- realigning previously antagonistic relations with important countries in ways that continue serving the interests of America and its allies more than three decades later.
B, that list of "attacks" is absurd. In both '56 and '67 Israel went to war only after they had legitimate cause due to the closing of the straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping by Egypt (blockade being an act of war). Neither the War of Attrition nor the '82-2000 South Lebanon conflict were "attacks" in any meaningful sense, but rather situations where Israeli troops, dug into defensive positions along a hostile border, were engaged in a constant low level conflict with, respectively, the Egyptians and Hezbollah. Both Intifadas were attacks on Israel by the Palestinians (I grant that the first Intifada wasn't actually a violent assault, but a strike/protest, and a completely legitimate one. Still, to say that either of the Intifadas was in any meaningful sense initiated by Israeli "attacks" on the Palestinians is utterly ahistorical, and baldly propagandistic). The "Shebaa Farms" conflict isn't even a real thing. There was no single, recognized, ongoing conflict over the Shebaa Farms in those years. What did happen, however, was that after Israel evacuated South Lebanon entirely in 2000, and after the UN had certified that Israel had done so, Hezbollah used an entirely specious claim to an absolutely tiny strip of land recognized by the UN to be on Israel's side of the border, as a pretext to launch periodic cross border assaults. In any event, what minor hostilities there were in these years related to the "Shebaa Farms" were largely attacks on Israel, not the reverse. As for the 2006 Lebanon War, it was started, you will remember, by Hezbollah crossing the border into Israeli territory to attack a routine Israeli border patrol, and kidnapping two soldiers from inside Israel and taking them back across the border into Lebanon. So again, not an instance where conflict was initiated by an Israeli "attack." As for both of the other Lebanon conflicts and Gaza, those conflicts, ill-conceived though they may have been, were all responses to repeated terror attacks emanating from those territories on Israeli civilians, which again, throws a wrench into your claim of totally unprovoked Israeli aggression.
I'm actually surprised you didn't include the 1973 Yom Kippur war on your list. What was the problem? Was that so obviously a case of aggression AGAINST Israel that even you couldn't convince yourself of the opposite? Cause really, I expect better of you B. Reality has never been a hindrance to you before.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
List of attacks by Israel against it's neighbours since 1950:
# 1956 Suez War
# 1964–1967 War over Water
# 1967 Six Day War
# 1967-1970 War of Attrition
# 1978 South Lebanon conflict
# 1982 Lebanon War
# 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict
# 1987-1993 First Intifada [1,100 Palestinians killed after the intifada was provoked by Israel's "Iron Fist" policy launched in 1985 along with an increase in settler activity which the then Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, Gad Ya'acobi, described as "a creeping process of de facto annexation"].
# 2000–2006 Shebaa Farms conflict
# 2000–2005 Second Intifada [5500 Palestinians killed. According to the New York Times, many in the Arab world, including Egyptians, Palestinians, Lebanese and Jordanians, point to Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount as the beginning of the Second intifada and derailment of the peace process]
# 2006 Lebanon War
# 2008-2009 Gaza War
List of attacks by Iran against it's neighbours since 1950:
0
Wasn't Iran in a war with its neighbor Iraq for most of the 80's?
Gimme, I'm sorry, but I don't follow the argument you're making?
Commy, Iraq was a disaster. Still, I think it would depend on who you asked. The Kurds, for example, are probably not disposed to thinking of the U.S. as the greatest danger to them.
i read just the other day that iraq's current government has just as many people in prison without charge or trial than saddam had....the more things change the more they stay the same, i guess
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
List of attacks by Israel against it's neighbours since 1950:
# 1956 Suez War
# 1964–1967 War over Water
# 1967 Six Day War
# 1967-1970 War of Attrition
# 1978 South Lebanon conflict
# 1982 Lebanon War
# 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict
# 1987-1993 First Intifada [1,100 Palestinians killed after the intifada was provoked by Israel's "Iron Fist" policy launched in 1985 along with an increase in settler activity which the then Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, Gad Ya'acobi, described as "a creeping process of de facto annexation"].
# 2000–2006 Shebaa Farms conflict
# 2000–2005 Second Intifada [5500 Palestinians killed. According to the New York Times, many in the Arab world, including Egyptians, Palestinians, Lebanese and Jordanians, point to Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount as the beginning of the Second intifada and derailment of the peace process]
# 2006 Lebanon War
# 2008-2009 Gaza War
List of attacks by Iran against it's neighbours since 1950:
0
Wasn't Iran in a war with its neighbor Iraq for most of the 80's?
yes, while we sold arms to both of them at the same time.....though, i have no idea about the locations the conflicts happened, i know saddam gassed some iranians, not sure if there were any attacks on iraqi soil
i've always thought it was funny israel was the middleman for us and iran during iran/contra....so israel helped sell thousands of missiles to iran and now they claim they are frightened that they will be shot at them? whatever
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Israel went to war only after they had legitimate cause due to the closing of the straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping by Egypt (blockade being an act of war).l:
Well then, it would seem Palestine have a legitimate cause as well seeing the blockade of Gaza is an act of war perpetrated by Israel.
Oh, yeah, Israel and Hamas are clearly in a state of armed conflict.
Israel bombed Gaza and continue with armed 'incursions' (as they like to call them) - sounds like conflict to me. Of course, the palestinians don't have the 'artillery' that Israelis have. My point was that if Israel decides a blockade is a legitimate cause for armed attacks (as you state in your post), then it's the same for Palestine. Israel is blockading - Palestine have legitimate cause to 'respond', even with their miserable rockets. No ifs and buts about it.
I'm agreeing with you. They are in a state of armed conflict. Where I disagree is that Israel has stated explicitly and repeatedly that the blockade is in place because of the rocket fire (which preceded it), so as a practical matter, if Hamas would like the blockade to be lifted they might want to think about stopping the rockets.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
I'm agreeing with you. They are in a state of armed conflict. Where I disagree is that Israel has stated explicitly and repeatedly that the blockade is in place because of the rocket fire (which preceded it), so as a practical matter, if Hamas would like the blockade to be lifted they might want to think about stopping the rockets.
aaah so thats how it works is it.. the oppressed must be the ones to make the concession before their human rights are reinstated. all these years ive been thinking oppression can only be lifted by the oppressor.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I'm agreeing with you. They are in a state of armed conflict. Where I disagree is that Israel has stated explicitly and repeatedly that the blockade is in place because of the rocket fire (which preceded it), so as a practical matter, if Hamas would like the blockade to be lifted they might want to think about stopping the rockets.
The blockade and the occupation have nothing to do with rocket attacks. You haven't been stealing their land for the past 60 years because of rocket attacks.
Firstly, Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 as a response to Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez canal. No dispute about that.
As for blocking the the Straits of Tiran, they were in fact open, and Egypt wasn't even searching ships anymore after a week of the "closure". We know this because the commander of U.N.E.F. at the time, General Indar Jit Rikhy, wrote it in his book The Sinai Blunder. So, one of the main propaganda points for justifying the Israeli war on Egypt is factually false. Ships were going through the Straits, and supporters of Israel are liars if they claim they weren't.
In fact, Israel's Eilat port had not seen an Israeli flagged vessel in the previous two and a half years, according to the UN secratariat. Eilat received only 5% of Israeli imports, and the only essential commodity, oil, certainly could have gone to the Haifa port. And this is all assuming the Straits were closed at all, which, they weren't. Thereby, again, destroying one of the main arguments favoring the Israeli war on Egypt.
Secondly, any honest person who looks at the historical record - including statements from the Israeli leadership - can see that Israel attacked first in 1967.
1967:
'Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech delivered at the Israeli National Defense College, clearly stated that: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him" (Jerusalem Post, 20 August 1982).
A few months after the war, Yitzhak Rabin remarked: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai on 14 May would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde, 29 February 1968).
'General Matityahu Peled, one of the architects of the Israeli conquest, committed what the Israeli public considered blasphemy when he admitted the true thinking of the Israeli leadership: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war" (Ha'aretz, 19
March 1972). Israeli Air Force General Ezer Weizmann declared bluntly that "there was never any danger of extermination" (Ma'ariv, 19 April 1972). Mordechai Bentov, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also dismissed the myth of Israel's imminent annihilation: "All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories" (Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972).
Whilst we're on the subject, maybe you can explain why Israel attacked the U.S.S Liberty?
As for the 2006 Lebanon War, it was started, you will remember, by Hezbollah crossing the border into Israeli territory to attack a routine Israeli border patrol, and kidnapping two soldiers from inside Israel and taking them back across the border into Lebanon. So again, not an instance where conflict was initiated by an Israeli "attack."
The kidnapping of those soldiers wasn't a legitimate reason to start a war, just as the kidnapping of two Palestinians the day before wasn't a legitimate reason to start a war with Israel. It was just a pretext, and the invasion of Lebanon had been planned for months in advance.
But then there's always some convenient excuse to justify Israels crimes, right?
I'm actually surprised you didn't include the 1973 Yom Kippur war on your list. What was the problem? Was that so obviously a case of aggression AGAINST Israel that even you couldn't convince yourself of the opposite? Cause really, I expect better of you B. Reality has never been a hindrance to you before.
Sure:
'After coming to power in late 1970, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat indicated to the United States that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. In February 1971 he offered a full peace treaty to Israel, which it rejected, although international consensus supported the Sadat offer which conformed to the US position (John Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace, Dial, 1973, p. 286).
When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched an coordinated action in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights. The devastating defeat of 1967 left Israel in control of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. Israel rapidly moved to incorporate these occupied territories into its domain. Israel illegally annexed Jerusalem and began establishing colonial settlements in all the occupied territories.
It was clear that the Arab World could not go on indefinitely watching Israel expel Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported.
On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action: "In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).'
B, that list of "attacks" is absurd. In both '56 and '67 Israel went to war only after they had legitimate cause due to the closing of the straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping by Egypt (blockade being an act of war).
You ever heard of something called The Protocol of Sèvres?
'The documentary evidence does not leave any room for doubt that at Sèvres, during the three days in late October 1956, an elaborate war plot was hatched against Egypt by the representatives of France, Britain and Israel. The Protocol of Sèvres is the most conclusive piece of evidence for it lays out in precise detail and with a precise time-table how the joint war against Egypt was intended to proceed and shows foreknowledge of each other’s intentions. The central aim of the plot was the overthrow of Gamal Abdel Nasser.'
Just about every intelligence agency in the world has come out and said that they are running a secret arms program. I really don't think there is any debate about that.
What are your thoughts on Israel's secret arms program Yosi?
Just about every intelligence agency in the world has come out and said that they are running a secret arms program. I really don't think there is any debate about that.
What are your thoughts on Israel's secret arms program Yosi?
its not really a secret if more than 1 person knows. loose lips and all that.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Just about every intelligence agency in the world has come out and said that they are running a secret arms program. I really don't think there is any debate about that.
What are your thoughts on Israel's secret arms program Yosi?
its not really a secret if more than 1 person knows. loose lips and all that.
Which begs the question as to why mordechai vanunu is still a political prisoner under house arrest in Israel.
looks like there is a new arms race going on in the middle east...of course it is the US supplying the weapons and profitting heavily from their sale. it is interesting that the article says that since there is pressure at home to reduce defence spending, they have to sell overseas instead....fucking money whores :twisted: :twisted: ...like i said in a different thread, "have money, we'll do business..."
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – As American and Saudi officials spent months quietly hammering out a wish list for a mammoth sale of American warplanes and other weapons to the oil-rich kingdom, leaders in Iran were busy publicly displaying their advances in missiles, naval craft and air power.
In one memorable bit of political theater, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood under a cascade of glitter in August to unveil a drone bomber — dubbed the "ambassador of death" — that he claimed would keep foes in the region "paralyzed" on their bases.
The response by Washington and its cornerstone Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, moved a step ahead Wednesday. The Obama administration notified Congress of plans to sell as many as 84 new F-15 fighter jets, helicopters and other gear with an estimated $60 billion price tag.
The proposed deal — one of the biggest single U.S. arms sales — is clearly aimed at countering Iran's rising military might and efforts to expand its influence.
But it ties together other significant narratives in the region, including an apparent retooling of Israeli policies to tacitly support a stronger, American-armed Saudi Arabia because of common worries about Iran.
It also reinforces the Gulf as the Pentagon's front-line military network against Iran even as the U.S. sandwiches the Islamic republic with troops and bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"In this way, Saudi Arabia does become some sort of buffer between Israel and Iran," said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that tracks arms sales.
Israel has made no diplomatic rumblings over the proposed Saudi deal — a marked contrast to almost automatic objections decades ago to Pentagon pacts with Arab nations. It's widely seen as an acknowledgment that Israel's worries over Iran and its nuclear program far outweigh any small shifts in the Israel-Arab balance of power.
Israel is moving toward a policy of "pick your fights," said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
"After all," he added, "Saudi Arabia is not such a big threat to us."
And Israel does not come out of the current American arms bazaar empty handed. Earlier this month, it signed a deal to purchase 20 F-35 stealth fighters that could possibly reach Iran undetected by radar. Israel has an option for 75 more.
"This equipment is primarily to give (Israel) a better feeling facing the Iranian threat. It is not related to Israeli-Arab relations," said Inbar. "Ironically, in the current situation, Saudi Arabia is in the same strategic boat as Israel is in facing the Iranian threat."
Besides the new fighters for Saudi Arabia, the U.S. plans to upgrade an additional 70 of the kingdom's existing F-15s. State Department and Pentagon officials told lawmakers the sales also will include 190 helicopters, including Apaches and Black Hawks, as well as an array of missiles, bombs, delivery systems and accessories such as night-vision goggles and radar warning systems.
Congress has 30 days to block the deal, which was first revealed in September but has been in negotiations for months. U.S. officials say they aren't expecting significant opposition.
Iran, meanwhile, has concentrated on its missile arsenal overseen by the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Its solid-fuel Sajjil missile has a reported range of more than 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) — within range of Israel and all main U.S. bases in the region.
Iran's navy has staged war games in the Gulf and announced major additions to its fleet, including three Iranian-built submarines designed to operate in the Gulf's shallow waters.
It marks the Gulf as a buyer's market for arms, led by the U.S. as the dominant Western military power from Kuwait to Oman. Throughout the Gulf, Washington counts on access to Arab allies' air bases, logistics hubs and the Bahrain headquarters of America's naval powerhouse in the region — the U.S. 5th Fleet.
A report last month by the U.S. General Accountability Office said Washington approved $22 billion worth of military equipment transfers to the six Gulf Arab states between fiscal 2005 and 2009 through a Pentagon-managed program.
More than half was earmarked for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including a $6.5 billion deal in 2009 for the UAE to buy the Patriot missile defense system.
The UAE agreement was the largest single arms approval during the five-year period — but is dwarfed by the proposed Saudi deal.
The researcher Wezeman said Iran is clearly the top perceived threat for the Gulf Arabs, but there are background concerns about Iraq's stability and the unrest in neighboring Yemen that includes Shiite Hawthi rebels and Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaida. The Saudi military was drawn into rare fighting in northern Yemen starting late last year, using airstrikes and artillery to battle a Hawthi rebellion that was spilling across the border.
"Of course it's against Iran. Of course it's against Yemen," said Wezeman. "You can read between the lines ... but there are not any official statements about it."
Wezeman's group issued a report this month that estimates the eight nations ringing the Gulf — including rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia — accounted for 10 percent of all conventional weapons imports between 2005-2009.
The appetite was on display earlier this month when envoys from more than 50 U.S. defense and aerospace firms held talks in Abu Dhabi, where they were welcomed by the UAE's minister of foreign trade at an opulent hotel on the shores of the Gulf.
As the American defense budget tightens, the Gulf's deep pockets beckon.
"This is a critical time for our companies abroad as the U.S. defense budget continues to face pressures at home," said a statement from Lawrence Farrell, head of the National Defense Industrial Association based outside Washington.
Jane Kinninmont, a Middle East and Africa specialist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said concerns over Iran are the primary motivation for the Saudi arms expansion. But she wonders how much the untested Gulf forces rattle Iranian commanders who are almost all veterans of the 1980-88 war with Iraq.
"I would not be surprised if the Iranians are pretty cynical about the armies here," she said during an interview in Dubai. "To put it bluntly, they've fought a war."
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
In one memorable bit of political theater, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood under a cascade of glitter in August to unveil a drone bomber — dubbed the "ambassador of death" — that he claimed would keep foes in the region "paralyzed" on their bases.
"
Ambassador of death More like the ambassador of shitty props to pump your nation up
In one memorable bit of political theater, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood under a cascade of glitter in August to unveil a drone bomber — dubbed the "ambassador of death" — that he claimed would keep foes in the region "paralyzed" on their bases.
"
Ambassador of death More like the ambassador of shitty props to pump your nation up
so iran has those drone rockets...i still do not see why the US feels it is necessary to arm every other country in the region on an amazing scale to prevent attack from those. just watch. this is the prelude to the beating of war drums against iran. the media dupe has already begun here in the US, with them quoting iran's leader with partial and out of context quotes...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
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The Weak Case for War with Iran
BY FLYNT LEVERETT, HILLARY MANN LEVERETT | AUGUST 11, 2010
Jeffrey Goldberg's new article in the Atlantic is deeply reported -- and deeply wrong about the Middle East. But it's his misunderstanding of America that is most dangerous of all.
Amid widespread skepticism that sanctions will stop Tehran's nuclear development and grudging, belated recognition that the Green Movement will not deliver a more pliable Iranian government, a growing number of commentators are asking the question, "What does President Obama do next on Iran?"
For hawks, the answer is war. Last month, in The Weekly Standard, Reuel Marc Gerecht made the case for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear targets. With the publication of Jeffrey Goldberg's "The Point of No Return" in the Atlantic, the campaign for war against Iran is now arguing that the United States should attack so Israel won't have to.
To be sure, Goldberg never explicitly writes that "the United States should bomb Iran." But he argues that, unless Israel is persuaded that Obama will order an attack, "there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July." And Goldberg's Israeli interlocutors readily acknowledge that the United States could mount a far more robust air campaign against Iranian nuclear targets than Israel could. A much more limited Israeli strike "may cause Iran to redouble its efforts-this time with a measure of international sympathy-to create a nuclear arsenal [and] cause chaos for America in the Middle East," he acknowledges. Goldberg believes the Obama administration understands that "perhaps the best way to obviate a military strike on Iran is to make the threat of a strike by the Americans seem real." But there is a clear implication that, if threat alone does not work, better for the United States to pull the trigger than Israel.
Goldberg's reporting on Israeli thinking about Iran -- reflecting interviews with "roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers" -- including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- is exemplary. Unlike Gerecht, Goldberg does not skirt the potentially negative consequences of war. But Goldberg's reporting also reveals that the case for attacking Iran -- especially for America to attack so Israel won't -- is even flimsier than the case Goldberg helped make for invading Iraq in 2002, in a New Yorker article alleging that "the relationship between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda is far closer than previously thought."
Goldberg's case for war on Iran starts with the Holocaust -- and a view of the Islamic Republic as a latter-day Third Reich, under ideologically obsessed, anti-Semitic leadership to which "rational deterrence theory ... might not apply." Israelis across the political spectrum have bought the argument that Iran is an "existential threat," he writes. But, as Goldberg himself acknowledges, this is not true. He recounts his realization of the "contradiction" captured in a photograph of Israeli fighter planes flying over Auschwitz that he saw "in more than a dozen different offices" at Israel's defense ministry:
"If the Jewish physicists who created Israel's nuclear arsenal could somehow have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and sent a squadron of fighters back to 1942, then the problem of Auschwitz would have been solved in 1942. In other words, the creation of a serious Jewish military capability-a nuclear bomb, say, or the Israeli air force-during World War II would have meant a quicker end to the Holocaust. It is fair to say, then, that the existence of the Israeli air force, and of Israel's nuclear arsenal, means axiomatically that the Iranian nuclear program is not the equivalent of Auschwitz." (emphasis added)
Moreover, the Islamic Republic is not Hitler's Germany, particularly regarding Jews. No matter how many anti-Zionist or even anti-Semitic quotes Gerecht, Goldberg, and others may marshal from Iranian politicians, inconvenient realities undermine the Islamic Republic/Third Reich analogy: Roughly 25,000-30,000 Jews continue living in Iran, with civil status equal to other Iranians and a constitutionally guaranteed parliamentary seat. It is illegal in the Islamic Republic for Muslims to consume alcohol --but Jews (and Christians) are permitted wine for religious ceremonies and personal consumption. Iranian politicians frequently question Israel's legitimacy and predict demographics will ultimately produce a "one-state" solution in Palestine. It's true that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made provocative statements questioning the Holocaust. But neither Ahmadinejad nor any other Iranian leader has threatened to destroy Israel by initiating military conflict.
Fixating on Ahmadinejad's rhetoric obscures the fact that normalized U.S.-Iranian relations would profoundly benefit Israel -- just as Henry Kissinger's engagement with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the 1970s decisively changed regional dynamics to preclude any possibility of another generalized Arab-Israeli war. It is only in retrospect that Sadat -- an open admirer of Hitler who worked with Germany against Britain during World War II and not only made vicious anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic statements but launched a war that killed and injured thousands of Israelis -- is depicted as a "man of peace."
Goldberg ascribes Netanyahu's concern about the "existential threat" from Iran to the influence of Netanyahu's father -- a revisionist scholar who upended historiography of the Spanish Inquisition by focusing on its anti-Semitic roots. But Netanyahu père's worldview does not permit rational calculation of threat or diplomatic contributions to Israel's security. Ben Zion Netanyahu opposed Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin over peace with Egypt and, in an interview last year, said of Arabs that they are "an enemy by essence ... [T]he only thing that might move the Arabs from the rejectionist position is force."
This is a strategically obtuse outlook, the influence of which on the current Israeli government's decision-making can only be pernicious. But Goldberg's reporting on his conversations with Israeli generals, national-security policymakers, and politicians makes clear that, in fact, those at the top of Israel's political order understand Iran's nuclear program is not an "existential threat." His interlocutors recognize Iran is unlikely to invite its own destruction by attacking Israel directly. Rather, they say, a nuclear Iran "will progressively undermine [Israel's] ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens," according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
"The real threat to Zionism is the dilution of quality," Barak tells Goldberg. "Jews know that they can land on their feet in any corner of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place, such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life, that even American Jewish young people want to come here ... Our young people can consciously decide to go other places [and] stay out of here by choice."
Ephraim Sneh, retired general and former deputy defense minister, also describes the non-existential nature of the Iranian "threat":
"[Israelis] are good citizens, and brave citizens, but the dynamics of life are such that if ... someone finishes a Ph.D. and they are offered a job in America, they might stay there ... The bottom line is that we would have an accelerated brain drain."
In other words, Israeli elites want the United States to attack Iran's nuclear program -- with the potentially negative repercussions that Goldberg acknowledges -- so that Israel will not experience "a dilution of quality" or "an accelerated brain drain." Sneh argues that "if Israel is no longer understood by its 6 million Jewish citizens, and by the roughly 7 million Jews who live outside of Israel, to be a ‘natural safe haven', then its raison d'être will have been subverted."
To be sure, the United States has an abiding commitment to Israel's security. But, just as surely, preventing "dilution of quality" or bolstering Israelis' perceptions regarding their country's raison d'être can never give an American president a just or strategically sound cause for initiating war. And make no mistake: Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would mean war.
Netanyahu himself admits that the challenges posed by a nuclear Iran "are more subtle than a direct attack," noting that "you'd create a sea change in the balance of power in our area." This is another major point in the Israeli case for war that deserves unpacking -- and debunking. Goldberg points out that "Persian and Jewish civilizations have not forever been enemies." In fact, the Islamic Republic and Israel have not forever been enemies. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel -- over Washington's objections -- sold weapons to Iran, and was involved in U.S. President Ronald Reagan's subsequent outreach to Tehran (which imploded in the Iran-Contra scandal).
However, Israeli-Iranian geopolitical dynamics changed with the Cold War's end, the Soviet Union's collapse, and the removal of Iraq's military as a factor in the regional balance of power through the first Gulf War. Since then, Israel has deemed Iran its principal rival for regional hegemony -- and the Islamic Republic views what it sees as Israel's hegemonic ambitions as threatening its vital interests.
Israeli elites want to preserve a regional balance of power strongly tilted in Israel's favor and what an Israeli general described to Goldberg as "freedom of action" --the freedom to use force unilaterally, anytime, for whatever purpose Israel wants. The problem with Iranian nuclear capability -- not just weapons, but capability -- is that it might begin constraining Israel's currently unconstrained "freedom of action." In May, retired Israeli military officers, diplomats, and intelligence officials conducted a war game that assumed Iran had acquired "nuclear weapons capability." Participants subsequently told Reuters that such capability does not pose an "existential threat" to Israel -- but "would blunt Israel's military autonomy."
One may appreciate Israel's desire to maximize its military autonomy. But, in an already conflicted region, Israel's assertion of military hegemony is itself a significant contributor to instability and the risk of conflict. Certainly, maximizing Israel's freedom of unilateral military initiative is not a valid rationale for the United States to start a war with Iran. Just imagine how Obama would explain such reasoning to the American people.
So, what should Obama do? Goldberg concludes with a story told by Israeli President Shimon Peres about Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. When Ben-Gurion met U.S. president-elect John F. Kennedy in late 1960, Kennedy asked what he could do for Israel. Ben-Gurion replied, "What you can do is be a great president of the United States."
Regarding Iran, what constitutes "greatness" for Obama? Clearly, Obama will not achieve greatness by acquiescing to another fraudulently advocated and strategically damaging war in the Middle East. He could, however, achieve greatness by doing with Iran what Richard Nixon did with Egypt and China -- realigning previously antagonistic relations with important countries in ways that continue serving the interests of America and its allies more than three decades later.
I'm actually surprised you didn't include the 1973 Yom Kippur war on your list. What was the problem? Was that so obviously a case of aggression AGAINST Israel that even you couldn't convince yourself of the opposite? Cause really, I expect better of you B. Reality has never been a hindrance to you before.
i read just the other day that iraq's current government has just as many people in prison without charge or trial than saddam had....the more things change the more they stay the same, i guess
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
yes, while we sold arms to both of them at the same time.....though, i have no idea about the locations the conflicts happened, i know saddam gassed some iranians, not sure if there were any attacks on iraqi soil
i've always thought it was funny israel was the middleman for us and iran during iran/contra....so israel helped sell thousands of missiles to iran and now they claim they are frightened that they will be shot at them? whatever
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Well then, it would seem Palestine have a legitimate cause as well seeing the blockade of Gaza is an act of war perpetrated by Israel.
Israel bombed Gaza and continue with armed 'incursions' (as they like to call them) - sounds like conflict to me. Of course, the palestinians don't have the 'artillery' that Israelis have. My point was that if Israel decides a blockade is a legitimate cause for armed attacks (as you state in your post), then it's the same for Palestine. Israel is blockading - Palestine have legitimate cause to 'respond', even with their miserable rockets. No ifs and buts about it.
aaah so thats how it works is it.. the oppressed must be the ones to make the concession before their human rights are reinstated. all these years ive been thinking oppression can only be lifted by the oppressor.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
The blockade and the occupation have nothing to do with rocket attacks. You haven't been stealing their land for the past 60 years because of rocket attacks.
Firstly, Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 as a response to Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez canal. No dispute about that.
As for blocking the the Straits of Tiran, they were in fact open, and Egypt wasn't even searching ships anymore after a week of the "closure". We know this because the commander of U.N.E.F. at the time, General Indar Jit Rikhy, wrote it in his book The Sinai Blunder. So, one of the main propaganda points for justifying the Israeli war on Egypt is factually false. Ships were going through the Straits, and supporters of Israel are liars if they claim they weren't.
In fact, Israel's Eilat port had not seen an Israeli flagged vessel in the previous two and a half years, according to the UN secratariat. Eilat received only 5% of Israeli imports, and the only essential commodity, oil, certainly could have gone to the Haifa port. And this is all assuming the Straits were closed at all, which, they weren't. Thereby, again, destroying one of the main arguments favoring the Israeli war on Egypt.
Secondly, any honest person who looks at the historical record - including statements from the Israeli leadership - can see that Israel attacked first in 1967.
1967:
'Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech delivered at the Israeli National Defense College, clearly stated that: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him" (Jerusalem Post, 20 August 1982).
A few months after the war, Yitzhak Rabin remarked: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai on 14 May would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde, 29 February 1968).
'General Matityahu Peled, one of the architects of the Israeli conquest, committed what the Israeli public considered blasphemy when he admitted the true thinking of the Israeli leadership: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war" (Ha'aretz, 19
March 1972). Israeli Air Force General Ezer Weizmann declared bluntly that "there was never any danger of extermination" (Ma'ariv, 19 April 1972). Mordechai Bentov, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also dismissed the myth of Israel's imminent annihilation: "All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories" (Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972).
Whilst we're on the subject, maybe you can explain why Israel attacked the U.S.S Liberty?
The kidnapping of those soldiers wasn't a legitimate reason to start a war, just as the kidnapping of two Palestinians the day before wasn't a legitimate reason to start a war with Israel. It was just a pretext, and the invasion of Lebanon had been planned for months in advance.
But then there's always some convenient excuse to justify Israels crimes, right?
Sure:
'After coming to power in late 1970, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat indicated to the United States that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. In February 1971 he offered a full peace treaty to Israel, which it rejected, although international consensus supported the Sadat offer which conformed to the US position (John Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace, Dial, 1973, p. 286).
When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched an coordinated action in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights. The devastating defeat of 1967 left Israel in control of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. Israel rapidly moved to incorporate these occupied territories into its domain. Israel illegally annexed Jerusalem and began establishing colonial settlements in all the occupied territories.
It was clear that the Arab World could not go on indefinitely watching Israel expel Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported.
On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action: "In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).'
You ever heard of something called The Protocol of Sèvres?
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20P ... 0Plot.html
'The documentary evidence does not leave any room for doubt that at Sèvres, during the three days in late October 1956, an elaborate war plot was hatched against Egypt by the representatives of France, Britain and Israel. The Protocol of Sèvres is the most conclusive piece of evidence for it lays out in precise detail and with a precise time-table how the joint war against Egypt was intended to proceed and shows foreknowledge of each other’s intentions. The central aim of the plot was the overthrow of Gamal Abdel Nasser.'
What are your thoughts on Israel's secret arms program Yosi?
its not really a secret if more than 1 person knows. loose lips and all that.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Which begs the question as to why mordechai vanunu is still a political prisoner under house arrest in Israel.
indeed... and lets not even go into how that came about. :shh:
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
'The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980'
US-Saudi arms deal ripples from Iran to Israel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101021/ap_ ... acing_iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – As American and Saudi officials spent months quietly hammering out a wish list for a mammoth sale of American warplanes and other weapons to the oil-rich kingdom, leaders in Iran were busy publicly displaying their advances in missiles, naval craft and air power.
In one memorable bit of political theater, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood under a cascade of glitter in August to unveil a drone bomber — dubbed the "ambassador of death" — that he claimed would keep foes in the region "paralyzed" on their bases.
The response by Washington and its cornerstone Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, moved a step ahead Wednesday. The Obama administration notified Congress of plans to sell as many as 84 new F-15 fighter jets, helicopters and other gear with an estimated $60 billion price tag.
The proposed deal — one of the biggest single U.S. arms sales — is clearly aimed at countering Iran's rising military might and efforts to expand its influence.
But it ties together other significant narratives in the region, including an apparent retooling of Israeli policies to tacitly support a stronger, American-armed Saudi Arabia because of common worries about Iran.
It also reinforces the Gulf as the Pentagon's front-line military network against Iran even as the U.S. sandwiches the Islamic republic with troops and bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"In this way, Saudi Arabia does become some sort of buffer between Israel and Iran," said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that tracks arms sales.
Israel has made no diplomatic rumblings over the proposed Saudi deal — a marked contrast to almost automatic objections decades ago to Pentagon pacts with Arab nations. It's widely seen as an acknowledgment that Israel's worries over Iran and its nuclear program far outweigh any small shifts in the Israel-Arab balance of power.
Israel is moving toward a policy of "pick your fights," said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
"After all," he added, "Saudi Arabia is not such a big threat to us."
And Israel does not come out of the current American arms bazaar empty handed. Earlier this month, it signed a deal to purchase 20 F-35 stealth fighters that could possibly reach Iran undetected by radar. Israel has an option for 75 more.
"This equipment is primarily to give (Israel) a better feeling facing the Iranian threat. It is not related to Israeli-Arab relations," said Inbar. "Ironically, in the current situation, Saudi Arabia is in the same strategic boat as Israel is in facing the Iranian threat."
Besides the new fighters for Saudi Arabia, the U.S. plans to upgrade an additional 70 of the kingdom's existing F-15s. State Department and Pentagon officials told lawmakers the sales also will include 190 helicopters, including Apaches and Black Hawks, as well as an array of missiles, bombs, delivery systems and accessories such as night-vision goggles and radar warning systems.
Congress has 30 days to block the deal, which was first revealed in September but has been in negotiations for months. U.S. officials say they aren't expecting significant opposition.
Iran, meanwhile, has concentrated on its missile arsenal overseen by the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Its solid-fuel Sajjil missile has a reported range of more than 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) — within range of Israel and all main U.S. bases in the region.
Iran's navy has staged war games in the Gulf and announced major additions to its fleet, including three Iranian-built submarines designed to operate in the Gulf's shallow waters.
It marks the Gulf as a buyer's market for arms, led by the U.S. as the dominant Western military power from Kuwait to Oman. Throughout the Gulf, Washington counts on access to Arab allies' air bases, logistics hubs and the Bahrain headquarters of America's naval powerhouse in the region — the U.S. 5th Fleet.
A report last month by the U.S. General Accountability Office said Washington approved $22 billion worth of military equipment transfers to the six Gulf Arab states between fiscal 2005 and 2009 through a Pentagon-managed program.
More than half was earmarked for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including a $6.5 billion deal in 2009 for the UAE to buy the Patriot missile defense system.
The UAE agreement was the largest single arms approval during the five-year period — but is dwarfed by the proposed Saudi deal.
The researcher Wezeman said Iran is clearly the top perceived threat for the Gulf Arabs, but there are background concerns about Iraq's stability and the unrest in neighboring Yemen that includes Shiite Hawthi rebels and Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaida. The Saudi military was drawn into rare fighting in northern Yemen starting late last year, using airstrikes and artillery to battle a Hawthi rebellion that was spilling across the border.
"Of course it's against Iran. Of course it's against Yemen," said Wezeman. "You can read between the lines ... but there are not any official statements about it."
Wezeman's group issued a report this month that estimates the eight nations ringing the Gulf — including rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia — accounted for 10 percent of all conventional weapons imports between 2005-2009.
The appetite was on display earlier this month when envoys from more than 50 U.S. defense and aerospace firms held talks in Abu Dhabi, where they were welcomed by the UAE's minister of foreign trade at an opulent hotel on the shores of the Gulf.
As the American defense budget tightens, the Gulf's deep pockets beckon.
"This is a critical time for our companies abroad as the U.S. defense budget continues to face pressures at home," said a statement from Lawrence Farrell, head of the National Defense Industrial Association based outside Washington.
Jane Kinninmont, a Middle East and Africa specialist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said concerns over Iran are the primary motivation for the Saudi arms expansion. But she wonders how much the untested Gulf forces rattle Iranian commanders who are almost all veterans of the 1980-88 war with Iraq.
"I would not be surprised if the Iranians are pretty cynical about the armies here," she said during an interview in Dubai. "To put it bluntly, they've fought a war."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."