Experts Say Little Chance Of Arab War Against Israel

by Thalif Deen

States like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates "are simply too small or too weak to defend themselves against military threats" and therefore rely heavily on the United States for their survival, said Mouin Rabbani, director of the Palestinian-American Research Center in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"The United States provides protection to these regimes in question, and they in turn purchase billions of dollars worth of weapons they do not need and will never use," he said. "We call it recycling of petrodollars."

Over the past week or so, demonstrators have taken to the streets of Arab capitals including Cairo, Rabat and Manama to vent their anger not only at Israel for its incursion into the West Bank and Gaza but also against their own governments for not coming to the Palestinians' assistance.

Arab governments have stockpiled advanced weapons systems, according to one argument common among demonstrators -- now is the time to use them against Israel.

"Most Arab countries are keenly aware of Israel's military prowess and of the likelihood that the United States would back Israel in a military confrontation, and are not willing to risk a direct confrontation" with Washington, said Kathleen Christison, author of "Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy."

Over a 10-year period ending in 2000, the United States provided $74.2 billion in arms and military training to 11 Middle East nations: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen and Qatar, according to official figures.

Egypt receives $2.1 billion in U.S. economic and military grants every year while Saudi Arabia's major weapons systems, including fighter planes, air-to-air missiles and main battle tanks, are all U.S.-made and paid for in hard currency.

Saudi Arabia purchased $33.5 billion in U.S. arms and other military services during 1991-2000, nearly twice the annual gross national product (GNP) of Lebanon ($18 billion), Qatar ($19 billion), and Oman ($16 billion), according to U.S. government data.

The Saudis' U.S. arms purchases exceeded those of Israel ($18.8 billion), Egypt ($12.7 billion), Kuwait ($5.5 billion), United Arab Emirates ($1.4 billion), and Bahrain ($1.1 billion), according to the latest figures released by the General Accounting Office, the investigative wing of the U.S. Congress.

Just after the 1990-1991 Gulf War that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia alone purchased $20 billion worth of weapons in a single transaction described at the time as the largest of its kind in U.S. history.

"These Arab states are really subsidizing Western arms manufacturers and their military-industrial complexes and in return their governments can rely on protection against internal and/or external challenges," said Rabbani.

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who depends on Russia and Eastern Europe for military supplies, said last week that Israel's Arab neighbors should not only open their borders to the Palestinians but also provide some of their U.S.-made weapons to them.

"These weapons," said Qaddafi, "are now useful only as scrap, and they should be remade into cooking pots and pans."

Christison said she liked Qaddafi's idea of recycling arms into pots and pans, adding: "This would do the entire Middle East a lot more good than helicopter gun ships and fighter jets are doing."

She disagreed, however, with Rabbani's assessment that large Arab arms purchases from the United States are specifically or primarily intended to subsidize the U.S. weapons industry.

"That is clearly one of the effects, and, from the standpoint of the U.S. arms industry, it is one of the motivations for sales," she said. However, "most of the Arab states that purchase arms in such large quantities do indeed see the arms as some kind of guarantee of their own internal stability."

"And it is a matter of national prestige to have the most advanced weapons possible, whether they are necessary are not," she added.