The Mideast needs more guns?
THE LAST THING the Middle East needs is a new round of arms sales, but that is what the Bush administration wants Congress to approve, the better to contain Iran's bid for dominance in the region. Under its current leadership, Tehran is a threat to regional stability. But that threat is best contained through diplomacy and a clear statement that, whatever happens in Iraq, US forces will not leave the region altogether.
The administration proposes to sell more than $20 billion of weaponry to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states. Iran is a textbook case of how badly awry such arms deals can go in a volatile region like the Mideast. During the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Tehran bought large stocks of US weapons, only to have them fall into the hands of the ayatollahs after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah.
Iran would not loom so powerful now if the United States had not deposed its natural counterweight, Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in Iraq. This brought to power Iraq's Shi'ite majority, many of whom are influenced by the Shi'ite leaders of Iran.
Saudi Arabia, which has its own Shi'ite minority, has reason to be concerned about Iran. But a conflict with Tehran would be less likely if all the nations in the region, along with the United States, engaged in the diplomacy called for by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission to stabilize Iraq, a potential flashpoint for regional conflagration.
Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq has been anything but helpful. It promotes a particularly militant form of Sunni fundamentalism, which has helped make Saudi Arabia the source of many suicide bombers in Iraq, as it was for most of the Sept. 11 terrorists. Last week, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, accused it of "undermining" the US position in Iraq. Saudi Arabia stood by while Iraq's largest Sunni political bloc decided this week to end its participation in the Iraqi government, further weakening its credibility.
Saudi Arabia has also failed to commit to joining the peace conference planned by the Bush administration for this fall to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To reward such uncooperative behavior by selling the Saudis billions of dollars worth of US arms can only encourage other nations to follow their own agendas and ignore US goals.
The primary US goal in the Mideast -- the encouragement of stable, democratic regimes that will live in peace with each other and Israel -- is best served by negotiations backed up by the United States' long-term commitment, endorsed by both political parties, to a military presence in the region. In a part of the world still struggling to establish the rule of law, arms peddling simply invites more demonstrations of the law of unintended consequences.
