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Gulf States Buy Arms With Wary Eye on Iran
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Ultimately, U.S. arms sales in the Gulf often are a matter of rewarding the prime protector of the Middle East with oil dollars, analysts said. The U.S. military also offers up some of its more coveted product lines to ensure that Gulf allies keep looking to the United States as its primary protector, rather than Russia or China.
"Was selling U.S. arms to Gulf countries in the past ever a deterrent to Iran or anyone else?" asked Khaled al-Shami in an article in the London-based Arabic daily al-Quds al-Arabi. "Or is it an indirect way to spread around oil revenues where U.S. warships embark?"
Rice also announced a 10-year renewal of the $1.3 billion in military aid Egypt has received from the United States each year since 1987. Egypt has been the second-largest recipient of U.S. military aid since signing a peace accord with Israel in 1979.
Egyptian human rights activists said the U.S. arms renewal gave Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak tacit U.S. sanction to proceed with his crackdown on all forms of opposition here.
Tuesday, as Rice and Arab leaders talked at Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian court refused to release imprisoned opposition leader Ayman Nour. The court rejected defense contentions that beatings and other harsh treatment in custody had made his diabetes life-threatening.
Nour was the lead challenger to Mubarak in 2005 elections. A court later sentenced him to five years in prison after convicting him of political fraud. Nour's supporters said the case against him was falsified. Rice told reporters Thursday on the flight back to Washington that she had raised Nour's case privately with Mubarak. Her inquiry went unreported in Egyptian newspapers during the trip.
"The United States decided to replace one commodity, democracy . . . after it discovered the dangers of exporting democracy without the necessary complementary package of cultural and social change and public liberty," wrote Hussam Ittani, a columnist for Lebanon's as-Safir newspaper. "What is the replacement? A commodity whose usefulness was proven in the past: gigantic arms deals."
Staff writer Robin Wright and staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
