Saudi Arms Deal is About Iran

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1792:saudi-
arms-deal-is-about-iran&catid=31:texas-straight-talk

Saudi Arms Deal is About Iran        

This month the US Administration notified Congress that it intends to 
complete one of the largest arms sales in US history to one of the most 
repressive regimes on earth. Saudi Arabia has been given the green light by 
the administration to spend $60 billion on some 84 new F-15 aircraft, dozens 
of the latest helicopters, and other missiles, bombs, and high-tech military 
products from the US weapons industry.  

Saudi Arabia, from where 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers came, is a 
family-run dictatorship, where there are no political parties, no independent 
press, and where any form of political dissent is met with the most severe 
punishment. We are told that we must occupy Afghanistan to encourage more 
rights for women, an issue on which the Saudi regime makes the Taliban look 
rather liberal by comparison. We are told that our increasingly aggressive 
policies toward Iran are justified by that country’s rigid Islamic laws and 
human-rights violations, while the even more repressive Islamic rule in Saudi 
Arabia is never mentioned.

So why would the US government, which spends hundreds of billions of dollars 
yearly and maintains hundreds of bases overseas to push global democracy, 
approve a deal like this with such a regime? As Stockholm Institute scholar 
Pieter Wezeman told the Washington Post, "Of course it's against Iran. Of 
course it's against Yemen. You can read between the lines ... but there are 
not any official statements about it." Although the deal must be approved by 
Congress, there is little chance of any significant Congressional opposition 
for the above reason.

Imagine if China had armed an aggressive, anti-American Mexico to the teeth. 
How would we feel? Threatened? That is likely how Iran feels with this 
massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia. To underscore this message, the US quietly 
announced early this month that it was selling 20 F-35 Stealth fighters to 
Israel. As Israeli military purchases are paid for with US foreign aid, we 
must realize that the weapons pointed at Iran in the Middle East are American 
made and largely paid for with American tax dollars. Certainly Iran 
understands this. Will such a provocative move, arming two anti-Iranian 
powers in the region to the teeth, lead to a trigger event to bring about a 
full invasion of Iran? The economic tsunami that would result from such a 
horrific turn of events would only be eclipsed by the death and destruction 
in the region -- and likely beyond.

 Some will argue that these arms deals are international trade which we 
should encourage and applaud. Sadly, the United States does not build much 
that we can export these days. But the fact is that the US weapons industry 
is underwritten by the American taxpayer. From research and development to 
acquisition by the US military, the costs of the US arms industry are borne 
by American citizens. But, as so-called “private” companies, the enormous 
profits they make selling weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia are of 
course privatized. So the costs are socialized and the profits are 
privatized. There is a word for this arrangement and it is not “capitalism.”

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