Peace and Justice Post

Global Research, September 4, 2007

By Prof. Mohssen Massarrat

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The U.S. government is not marking any progress in Iraq, and the number of Americans who reject their president’s Iraq policy is growing day to day. The White House surprises us with the terrible news that it wants to provide Saudi-Arabia, the Gulf states and Egypt – all Sunni Arab countries – with weapons worth $34 billion. It is no arms dealer but the Bush administration that uninhibitedly announces the new armament plan as if it the purchaser were in fact its own federal states. To prevent misgivings from its adversaries’ build-up, Israel shall receive a similar amount of military aid.

The political justification for this business is obvious. It’s about Iran; more precisely, it’s about the demonization of the Islamic Republic as the core state of Shi’ite Islam – a view of Iran which the CIA’s PR agencies have built up and pushed in recent years. One thing is becoming increasingly clear: the United States military−industrial complex has a completely consistent long-term plan for the Near and Middle East region: arms race, arms race, and once again arms race.

The origins of this plan go back to the first “oil price shock” in 1974 when Henry Kissinger and his aides were looking for ways to recycle the oil states’ skyrocketing petro-dollars into the U.S.-dominated financial system. The solution was quickly found. The monarchical government of Iran – now the United States’ outstanding archenemy – was chosen as the key player for an enormous arms transfer. Shah Reza Pahlavi’s ambition to take the lead in the Middle East as the military hegemonic power came at just the right time for both the State Department and the Pentagon. Iran’s ruler – formerly Israel’s most important regional ally – had all his wishes fulfilled. He received – in a great number – the U.S. Air Force’s newest super weapons, such as the F-16 jet which at that point had not been sent to any other country – not even Israel. This manoeuver was justified with the argument that a counterweight was needed vis-à-vis Soviet allies – Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria, which at the time were also the most extreme representatives of Arab nationalism. Saudia-Arabia felt pressured into similarly substantial acquisitions of U.S. weapons, so that she could – according to the Realist school of thought – install a ‘balance of power.’ This was how the first externally coordinated arms race in the history of the Middle East was set up.

Continued . . .