Desert Mirage :Bush Administration To Offer $20 Billion Arms Deal to the Saudis

Kiss, Kiss....and now, my other cheeks, infidel!

As a fitting baksheesh to our `Eternal Friends', the Bush Administration is
preparing to present Congress with a huge $20 billion dollar arms deal with loads of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, major upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels.

And this comes at a time when the Saudi role in providing foreign fighters and homicide bombers for al Qaeda to kill our men in Iraq has just been exposed to new scrutiny.

The administration is attempting to buy votes for the deal in what is still a mostly pro-Israel congress by tying the Saudi package to a new military aid package for Israel . The increased aid to Israel is also supposed to allay concerns from Israel and its supporters about the Saudis receiving such a large chunk o' lethal merchandise from the US.

According to State department spokesmouths, the US also is going to ask the Saudis to accept restrictions on the range, size and location of the satellite-guided bombs, and promise not to store them at air bases close to Israeli territory as part of the deal.

This is a good time to point out that the Saudis made exactly those commitments in order to get their hands on the last load of American aircraft and AWACS we sold them...and then located them at bases within striking distance of Israel.

What the Bush Administration isn't talking about is what we're supposed to get in return from the Saudis for all this weaponry. The administration has made it clear that it isn't looking for specific assurances from our Saudi `allies' that they are going to help stabilize Iraq by cutting down on the jihadis emanating from their country as a condition of receiving the arms package. The Saudis have already said no to that anyway.

So, what's the deal here? I think I have a pretty good idea.

This is another desert mirage like President Bush's Arab democracy fantasy or the attempted coup d'etat by Fatah against Hamas.

US Secretary of State Condi Rice and SecDef Robert Gates are going to Riyadh together next week with the idea of holding the advanced arms and other carrots out in an attempt to get the Saudis, along with Oman and Kuwait to actually hold the line in containing the Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah axis after most of the US land forces leave.

The idea is to increase the size of the armed forces in these kingdoms and use them as a counterbalance in the event of a confrontation with Iran. If the Saudis go along, the Saudi air force will end up almost the size of Israel’s, and equipped with the most modern equipment the US can provide. This is why Vladimir Putin countered with a major arms deal to upgrade the air force of Russia's proxy in the region, selling 250 long-range SU-30MKM fighter-bombers to Iran as I reported on July 27th.

Since upgrading and expanding the Sunni and Gulf Emirates military is going to take some time, it's pretty obvious to me that President Bush is likely not planning any action against Iran until near the end of his term, if then, and that he has adopted the plan of trying to `contain' Iran - using newly militarized proxies like the Saudis as part of that strategy.

This is a problem on several levels.The idea of `containment' of Iran using Sunni autocrats as proxies is wishful thinking.

For one thing, the Saudis and the other Gulf nations are not exactly what I'd call loyal and trustworthy allies, and there no reason to suppose that they are not much more aligned with Iran than we think. As a matter of fact, there's good reason to believe that Iran and the Saudis have already ironed out a lot of their differences and come to various agreements on their relative spheres of influence. Remember, the Saudis have their own Shiite problem, in the Persian Gulf part of Saudi Arabia where the oil is. It's pretty easy to connect the dots and imagine a series of mutually satisfying arrangements with Iran...especially since both the Saudis and Iran can see how Congress is behaving and read the press to figure out the sort of support President Bush enjoys at home. And Iran has already made significant headway in persuading the Saudis and the Emirates to sign a mutual defense pact and present a united front against Israel and the West.

The Bush Administration is still trying to manipulate the historic Sunni-Shiite conflict for their own purposes. Unfortunately, they either don't realize or have forgotten that when it comes to jihad against the West, these two factions have always been prepared to bury their differences temporarily to combine against the infidel for the conquest of dar harb.

Second, even in the highly unlikely event that the Saudis do fight Iran, there's no reason to think that they would be any more effective than Fatah was against Hamas..even with all the spiffy hardware and weaponry.They're a rotten choice for a proxy. And in any event, the extra time given to Iran would allow them time to complete their nuclear project, and to deploy all of the modern weaponry they're getting from the Russians.

Tthird, the Bush Administration has a long history of providing gimmees to the Kingdom and asking them for quid pro quos without much of a return. The Saudis have consistently refused to curtail the export of hardline wahabism and jihad propaganda to the radical mosques and madrassahs they control in the US, refused to honor their pledge to change some of their trade practices to conform with US law after Dubbyah personally lobbied to get the Saudis into the WTO, stop the flow of Saudi fighters and homicide bombers to Iraq, or raise oil production to help stabilize the market.

Obviously, for whatever reason, the president just doesn't seem to do well when it comes to crafting deals with the Saudis that work to America's advantage.

Congress needs to oppose this farce. It's high time we planned our war strategy with a major dose of reality.