US pushes $60bn Saudi arms deal

US pushes $60bn Saudi arms deal

The US government is charging ahead with a plan to sell $60bn worth of advanced aircraft and other sophisticated weapons systems to Saudi Arabia, in what is thought to be the largest US arms deal ever. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, was also in talks with the Saudis about naval and missile-defence upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more. Under the deal, the US is also to expand Saudi Arabia's ballistic-missile defences "to reduce the threat from Iranian rockets", US officials were reported to have said. They also said that it was unclear how much that package would be worth, but it could be similar to one in the United Arab Emirates.

Source AL Jazeera

The biggest arms deal in US history is to provide another country with weapons to "defend against" (read attack) Iran. This is just a week after Russia sold Israel drones and other weapons to "defend" against Iran. (Discussed in this thread: Russia arms Israel )
It looks like Russia and the United States are arming Middle East countries with huge firepower and jets and drones so they can do the dirty work of attacking Iran. Then the US and Russia can keep their hands clean in the takeout of Iran.
Am I reading too much into this?

I guess to the United States, this is a win-win situation with the arms sale. The country makes much needed money, and the article says as many as 75,000 jobs could be created from this deal.
Once more it appears that "war is good business". Add to that the increased chances of someone else taking down Iran, in short term / short sited aspects I guess it was hard for the US to pass up.
Hopefully down the line in the future, these same weapons aren't used against the ones who sold them like in Afghanistan...

reply to post by Chamberf=6



You know what I find a bit odd. Is how nobody from the [Iran Can do no Wrong ] crowd here at ATS that there wasn't the big outcry against Russia for selling to [of all people Israel] weapon systems because Russia is perceived as being willing to go to war for Iran IF attacked by Israel/West.

Seems like hypocrisy to me.

But in the end it's whichever way the winds blowing I suppose also goes POP culture opinion on such complicated matters.

reply to post by SLAYER69


I agree. Russia is sort of playing both sides. Selling weapons to both Israel and Iran knowing that they talk about attacking each other constantly.
I think the US deal is pretty hypocritical too. Selling tons of weapons to Saudi Arabia? What the hell??

reply to post by Chamberf=6


US and Saudi relations have been the longest Mid East connection the US has had. As a global power
[Good, Bad or Indifferent] The US has invested Billions in the Middle East during the Cold War [ and since] to defend the Gulf against the Soviets which theoretically could have threatened the Wests oil supply.

The Saudis have allowed bases and other infrastructure on their soil. It came as a shock to many that during the build up for Gulf War 1 that Saudi Arabia already had everything the US/West needed in place to wage a modern conventional war in the region.

War/Money do make strange bedfellows. Russia has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. They like the sanctions on Iran to stay in place, they are playing both sides of this card. If Iran stays confrontational with the West then Russia does not have to worry about dealing with Iran competing with their Fuel Sales to Europe.

If Iran complied then the sanctions come off and Iran would be free to compete with Russia for fuel sales to the EU and others. China is building their pipeline through another troubled area to get into Central Asia which also has more oil than Iran and Saudi Arabia combined. They have huge oil deals with Iraq, in the end neither side would risk millions killed over Iran. IMO.

reply to post by Chamberf=6


Here is a fairly well balanced article on the relationship.
It shows pro and con.

U.S.-Saudi Relations

The United States and Saudi Arabia have long-standing economic and defense ties. A series of informal agreements, statements by successive U.S. administrations, and military deployments have demonstrated a strong U.S. security commitment to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was a key member of the allied coalition that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. Saudi Arabia hosted U.S. aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq; between the two Iraq wars of 1991 and 2003; however...

reply to post by SLAYER69


Thanks Slayer69, that's a good article.
I wasn't aware of some of that. I guess in my mind I think of Saudi Arabia as dangerous country, or "kingdom", because of some terrorists connections and just the fact that any country that is a theocracy could potentially go off the "deep end"..

reply to post by Chamberf=6



That's very real possibility, but as you can see it's a very complicated situation.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Yeah, it IS complicated. It is hard enough to figure country's motives out, but add money and weapons (or war) and it gets very muddied.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Balanced, perhaps. Useful? Not at all. If you really want to understand American-Saudi relations, you should read into the following:

In 1971, notes Dr. Petrov, the Nixon administration severed the last remaining link between the dollar and gold. From that point, "the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever-depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those depreciating dollars. It had to give the world an economic reason to hold them, and that reason was oil." The link between the dollar and oil, Petrov asserts, resulted from "an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia to support the House of Saud The House of Saud (آل سعود transliteration: Āl Suʿūd in exchange for accepting only US Dollars for its oil."

source

reply to post by Mdv2


"accepting only US dollars for its oil"
Wow. Now wonder some of Saudi Arabia's questionable actions and slips are overlooked by the US.
Once again, as with so many things, money is a deciding factor.