American Empire

William Arkin writes a follow-up to yesterdays terrific column on the arms deal the U.S. and it's Middle Eastern "allies". The man makes total sense. But is anyone listening? I think you know the answer:

But does anyone really imagine Saudi Arabia using its fighter jets in sustained long-range attacks? Can anyone see Egypt and Kuwait fighting side-by-side in a land war against Iran?

I didn't think so. The reality, and the problem, is that this deal paints a picture of an American Empire [my empasis]-- a military alliance of like-minded Arab states, a permanent U.S. military presence in the region, a focus on a monolithic enemy (Iran) -- while ignoring the roots of instability that exist in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Bush administration officially unveiled its $20 billion arms package for Saudi Arabia and the five other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates yesterday, along with a 10-year, $43 billion military aid package for Israel and Egypt.

In describing the arms package, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. hoped to increase the "interoperability" among U.S. allies in the Middle East to confront the threat of radicalism. Interoperability is a Pentagon-invented buzzword that means the ability of different militaries to operate and communicate together. It is also a word that gives away the formality of what the Bush administration is attempting to build.

The new alliance, we are told, will "counter" Iran's supposed growing influence and strength in the region. "There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important ... strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of the Middle East that we want to see," Rice said yesterday.

Iran "supports everything that the rest of the world is trying to defend against," Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told The Post.

The Israeli government says it has no objections to the arms sales, evidently so mesmerized by this new Middle East alliance against Iran -- Israel's No. 1 strategic enemy -- that it is unable to see the long-term implications of what a new alliance symbolizes to the Arab street: an American Empire.

Iran may be a problem, but building a military alliance to counter it only makes the problem worse. Focusing our moderate allies on conventional war-making and military pomp diverts their attention from the domestic political troubles and internal dissatisfactions that are at the root of their own instability. Even more, it accentuates those dissatisfactions by signaling to the conspiracy-minded and agnostics that the United States is in command.

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But how does a mountain of military equipment help reform? Are we just heading for a replay of late 1970's Iran, where we supply arms and support the "moderate" and even autocratic oil-selling, cappuccino-swilling, pro-Western regimes while revolution and terrorism build in the background?

When in the world are these people going to get it. The majority of the Middle East street sees the U.S. as the enemy, not Iran. By overblowing the Iranian threat and by militarizing the Middle East into a kind of cold war stance, we are further creating the monster. Remember Iran and the shah? Or how about Iraq? The proposed strategy has worked out so well so far, I think we should do more.

Finally. You know what's the kicker? I don't have a whole lot of confidence that, given our oil dependence, Democrats can see the region any differently.

Do you?