US Loses Mideast Arms Leverage

By Michael C. Dunn

On April 28, President Saddam Hussein's birthday, Iraq opened its first full scale international arms exposition. European companies were there in force. The Iraqis made clear that their postwar primary goal is not just to buy more arms, but to follow the Egyptian example and to build up the infrastructure of their own defense industry. Towards this end, they are seeking production and local assembly agreements with a number of European defense firms, as well as with the Soviet Union.

Since the United States will not sell defense equipment to the Iraqis at this time, it is not surprising that they look to Europe. Even Egypt—which does not usually face congressional objections to arms agreements—has in recent years favored European coproduction agreements. More and more, the United States has virtually abdicated its role in the Middle Eastern arms market.

To some, this may not seem such a bad thing: why should the United States sell weapons which might encourage regional wars? The problem is that the United States is surrendering the leverage it once had to influence decisions in the region, and as a result, it may actually be losing its ability to prevent war.

Ironically, even Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, after the second huge Saudi military aircraft purchase from Britain, admitted that Israel may have made a mistake in mobilizing its US lobby to block aircraft sales to the Saudis. Saudi Arabia's US-built F-15s cannot be based near Israel and their ground attack capabilities are sharply limited. The British-supplied Tornados have no such restrictions and are thus more of a threat to Israel than additional US aircraft would have been. As the Iran-Iraq war showed, regional players can acquire sophisticated arms from somewhere. By not playing a role in the arms market, the United States loses all leverage over how those arms are used.

The United States is surrendering the leverage it once had to influence decisions in the region, and as a result, it may actually be losing its ability to prevent war.

This is not to suggest that the US should have been selling arms to Iraq during the war, let alone Iran (although of course Oliver North and his enterprise were indeed doing the latter). But increasingly in recent years even such longtime American friends as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan have had to surmount ever increasing congressional obstacles to purchase significant US weapons systems, As a result, Saudi Arabia has turned to Britain for aircraft and China for missiles. For its aircraft, Jordan has looked to France and also to Britain, although a Tornado deal is now on hold.

Just before European defense firms Hocked to Baghdad to display their products, the Bush administration notified Congress of a number of proposed arms sales to foreign countries, ending a six-month hiatus in such notifications which began late in the Reagan administration.

When the logjam finally broke, however, the announcements did not include any of the Middle East sales which had been expected. At the beginning of the year, there had been talk of a sale of F-18s, M- I tanks and of the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) to the Saudis. But soon afterward the possibility that the US administration would fight a major political battle over aircraft sales to the Saudis this year faded. The "Javits list" of proposed arms sales, given to Congress early in the year, included no Saudi aircraft.

Instead, the sales announced were all relatively noncontroversial, for the most part either maintenance agreements or sales of equipment already in service. Four proposed sales for the Arab world were Hawk missiles for Egypt, maintenance agreements for Saudi F-5s and F-15s, and the MLRS for Bahrain. Only the latter represents a major change in past patterns, since the MLRS has not previously been sold to the Arab world. But there was no notification of the MLRS sale to Saudi Arabia.

Sources now suggest that sale of M-1 tanks is likely to be put before Congress this fall. As for the Saudi aircraft sale, that is delayed until next year at the earliest. The Bush administration's Middle East team has been slow to get on the field. And the "kinder, gentler" approach to congressional relations has so far meant not pushing any major proposals likely to incur congressional wrath. (As a result, the administration has postponed any arms sale proposals which might lead to a major fight with the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAQ or congressional supporters of Israel. All this reinforces the impression that the United States is no longer really in the arms sales business in the Middle East.

During the Reagan administration, major arms sales to the Arab world were proposed, congressional fightsensued,and in the Jordanian and Saudi cases the administration backed off, withdrawing or amending the sales to placate Congress. Some have felt that the Saudi request for aircraft and M-1 tanks would be the test that would determine whether the Saudis will continue to return to the American well for any major systems, or whether, as has already happened with the Tornados, missiles, and naval vessels, the Saudis will in the future turn elsewhere. As a result, years of carefully built up defense cooperation are in jeopardy, and the potential utility of having US-compatible equipment present in the Gulf region if a major international Confrontation erupts there is lost.

Arms sales to the Arab world are not automatically inimical to Israel's interests. As mentioned, Israel has itself expressed concern that the Saudi Tornado purchase may be more dangerous to Israel's security than an additional sale of American aircraft would have been. And US unwillingness to sell the short-range Lance missile led directly to Saudi purchase of the intermediate range DF-3A (CSS-2) ballistic missile from China. US reluctance to sell arms is not necessarily a way to deter an arms race: sometimes a US sale actually deters the purchase of more dangerous equipment with fewer constraining conditions attached.

The Bush administration is theoretically committed to continue the policy of selling arms to friendly states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and others in the region. But the delay in announcing any of the controversial sales—in fact the long delay even in notifying Congress of the non-controversial sales announced in May—suggests a reluctance which will be interpreted in the Middle East as unwillingness to sell. A major arms transaction takes years to complete. If, for political reasons, the simple notification of the sale is delayed for six months or a year, it further pushes back the time when a needed system may actually be available for delivery. And in the meantime, other countries, eager to deliver the goods much more quickly, seek to step in where the United States is increasingly reluctant to tread.

Dr. Michael C. Dunn is senior analyst of the International Estimate, Inc., publisher of the biweekly newsletter The Estimate, and is adjunct lecturer at the Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.