Peace and Weapon

The 63 billion dollar arms deal between United States and Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel starts a new arms race in the region.

Since Iraq’s occupation and the presence of the United States and international troops in this country, the Middle East has experienced its worst crisis up to now. Before Iraq’s occupation several hot spots put the American diplomatic body under pressure. One was the prolonged tug-of-war between Arabs and Israelis and the other Lebanon’s crisis. With Iraq joining the circle of regional crises, it seems that America’s diplomatic body and military machine can not control the situation any longer and multiple crises have over stretched the American body polity.

Signing a contract to sell advanced armaments to United States’ allies in the region only worsens the crisis, since regional opponents of America such as Iran and Syria and its global rivals would not remain indifferent to America’s presence. The current article attempts to look at the long-term consequences of the new race America has set off in the Middle East and its underlying reasons.

1 By signing this contract, the United States is sending a message to Russia that the oil-rich region of Persian Gulf will remain an indispensable part of its national interests and Moscow’s attempts to reappear in the region in a way similar to the blocks formed during the Cold War era is fruitless.

As we know the Persian Gulf possesses two third of the known oil resources of the world. Great forces such as Europe and China still need this type of energy until they find alternative resources. Controlling the discovery, extraction and sale of energy in this oil-rich region is of vital interest to the United States.

Providing security within the region is also a part of America’s national security agenda. The emergence of global and regional rivals and their appearance in the region challenges America’s supremacy. Therefore in no way possible would Washington accept new divisions and alliances and presence of other world powers even Europe in the management of these resources which she deems as her dominion and an integral part of Americas national security.

To corroborate this approach, we can take a look at White House’s justifications to launch an attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. At the outset of this attack on Afghanistan, George Bush pointed out that toppling Taliban’s regime will remove the cloud of terrorism that hangs over the  United States territory and national interests. The same reasons were mentioned by Bush when America decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. Therefore we can say that America regards the Persian Gulf as its own backyard and it’ll not let regional and international opponents to gain influence in this region.

2 By signing an agreement to sell advanced armaments to Arab countries, America tends to increase the safety factor of these countries against what it claims as Iran’s imminent danger and its nuclear ambitions.          

 In the 1960s and when India’s atomic developments came to light, America adopted the strategy of atomic equilibrium in the Indian subcontinent and let Pakistan to increase its nuclear capability up to the level of constructing and testing  the A-bomb. That’s how America managed to establish detent between long-time rivals, namely India and Pakistan.

Currently America accuses Iran of trying to gain nuclear military capability. On the other hand it continuously mentions its concern over the enhancement of Iran’s missile capability and its increasing influence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. Actually Bush’s government, especially in his second term of presidency has continuously indicted Iran with different allegations.  American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan and war expenses have soared drastically.

United States needs to recompense part of these expenses. In the Arabic countries, especially those of the Persian Gulf region the ground has been set to scare the moderate Arabs with Iran’s military capability. Therefore, to bolster its position in the region as the only patron of moderate regimes and in order to recover the enormous expenses of the Iraq war and to establish military equilibrium in the region, America has adopted a strategy of dispatching advanced arms towards the Middle East to implement a model similar to that of the Cold War era but in a regional scale.

3 Simultaneous arrival of Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates, secretaries of state and defense in Middle East and Arab foreign ministers meeting in Sharm-el-Sheikh reveals that under the uproar caused by the sale of advanced armaments to Arab and Islamic countries, America aims to reactivate the Israel-Palestine peace process and take advantage of the passivity of influential Arab countries such as Egypt and the fear of the Arab countries of Persian Gulf from Iran to impose a solution on the Palestinian Authority Government which will be totally different with the so-called Arab-Israeli Peace Plan. Therefore we must anticipate acceleration in the peace process between Arabs and Israelis and also wait for more intense pressures on Iran. In the long run we must also await an arms race in the region.

In fact the United States has sent Ms. Rice to the region with a peace agreement in conformity with its ideal strategy and Israel’s interests and Robert Gates comes bearing offers of advanced weaponry with enormous contracts to sell arms to the Middle Easterners.

Peace (Solh) and weapon (Selah) sound alike in Persian but so different is their meaning.