The US government will work to speed up certain arms sales to the Gulf region to help bolster security following last month’s new nuclear deal with Iran, the American secretary of state has said.
John Kerry was in Doha yesterday to meet with GCC leaders concerned about the agreement, which involves lifting sanctions on Iran after the country agreed to scale back its uranium enrichment program.
In a press conference that focused largely on stability in the Middle East, both Kerry and Qatar’s foreign minister, who acted as the Gulf spokesman, were asked about the GCC’s support of the deal.
Dr. Khalid Al Attiyah said the agreement was “the best option” available to facilitate security and stability in the region.
He added:
“We hope that we (are) going to have a kind of a ban of nuclear weapons not only to Iran, but to all the Middle East. This is our position in the GCC countries when it comes to the nuclear deal.”
For his part, Kerry said the US reassured Gulf leaders by promising to help increase their security options.
He stressed that diplomacy would always be pursued when available, but that the country would also work to “prevent any kind of external or illegal and inappropriate engagement within a country from destabilizing our friends and allies in the region.”
He continued:
“Today, we talked very specifically about the ways in which countries can build their own capacity to push back against that kind of activity. We talked about and will engage in greater intelligence sharing. We will engage in special forces training, in exercises. We will engage in maritime interdiction and security. We will engage in other activities with respect to the flow of fighters and financing mechanisms.”
Big spenders
In 2014, Qatar and its regional neighbors spent nearly $100 billions on arms purchases from weapon makers in the US and other countries, according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Just last year, Qatar’s Armed Forces went on a multibillion-dollar shopping spree, announcing that it was purchasing new tanks, helicopters, warships, missiles and artillery following a major military trade show in Doha.
At the time, Qatar inked some $24 billion in deals with Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, among others.
Analysts have said the weapons purchases are to defend the region against any threats from Iran, though Qatari officials have dismissed this idea in the past, saying the government isn’t concerned about one specific country.
Thoughts?
Interesting too: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-promises-to-match-iran-in-nuclear-capability.html?_r=0
I don’t see Iran as much of threat, the religious dictators running the country want to keep power at all costs and attacking neighbours could lead to instablity and the poor oppressed Iranians over throwing them. What is more of a concern to gulf countries is home grown terrorism and terrorist attacks on their soil by individuals or cells, especially those targetting shias.
And what causes home grown terrorism MIMH, is it a cause or an effect?!
Don’t give me its foreign policy or cartoons. Maybe we could trace it back to the founding of major religions.
Probably need a better anlysis than that
I disagree. The flaw for terrorism or extremism is not found in the religious dogma of monotheistic religions but on how it is translated by people to suit their own idealism or greed.
Some argue that if religion was not there, there won’t be no religious extremism. Do you agree?
I cannot agree nor disagree, because it is nigh to impossible. People will always be worshiping a deity or an individual and that is part of human nature.
Historically, almost all tribes and civilizations worships a deity. The basic reason is that it satisfies their need to feel safe and secure. Because they believe that their deity can protect them from disasters.Even as of now, there are individuals who are creating religions or cults, as we call them now, and there are people who are willing to follow – sacrificing what they have to appease their deity.
But the thing here, is that extremism does not happened because of a particular religion. But because of a misguided belief that is planted in innocent minds and fanned until it dominates the action of that individual. Some examples are the massacre in a South Carolina Church by Dylann Roof (caused by race war) and the xenophobic attacks and killing of foreign nationals in South Africa (caused by comments of their Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini).
Now, regardless of religion, there will be extremism…. and we can’t change it.
I agree you make sense in everything you said.
I agree up to a point, extermism will always be with us in one form or another because good people do good things and bad people do bad things, however only religion makes good people do bad things believing they are right.
Unfortunately that is not the case, in the Koran and Bible you can find plenty of justifcation for your actions if you so wish and it is wrong for us to dismiss the religious origins of Islamic State. Yes some do it for power and glory and others for the glorious caliphate. In fact Prohpet Mohd and the early Muslims would recognise the methods of IS.
Prophet Mohd and Early Muslims
Destroy Idols. Tick
Impose Jizya. Tick
Behead Enemies. Tick
Own Slaves. Tick.
Trade Slaves. Tick
Wage Jihad against Non-Muslims. Tick.
Dream of Global Caliphate. Tick.
Too many sympathise with this view of the world. If I burn a Koran on TV, there will be riots around the world, embassies of western countries will be attacked, people will die, I will leave under the constant threat of murder and the outrage will be unbelieveable.
IS beheads people, enslaves and rapes women, kills non-Muslims, imposese non-muslims taxes, murders non-muslims, forces conversions or death for non-muslims but where are the world wide protests, the mobs of screaming Pakistanis denoucing IS and demanding action to save their religion from these monsters. Nowhere to be seen and there is the problem.
Your point “in the Koran and Bible you can find plenty of justification for your actions if you so wish” actually confirms what I’ve said.
The teaching and belief which are written in the Quran and Bible, can indeed be interpreted to follow our whim / wish. It made anti abortion extremist attack and bomb abortion clinics, killing people in the process, in the US. It made Jewish extremists attack and kill a 16 year old girl in a gay parade. Despite the fact that “Thou shall not kill” is clearly defined in the 10 commandments – which serves as the tenets of Christianity and Judaism.
Now my question to you is that when we are looking at Muslims, in general, and ISIS, if the ISIS interpretation on the Quran is indeed the correct one, should we have seen more rampant activities of enslavement, raping and killing in Islamic countries? If not, isn’t it because its leaders has a different interpretation of Islam – as a religion of peace, not war.
Medieval books with medieval punishments. Who knew the Koran prescribes crucifixion for corrupting the state
I feel sick at the hypocrisy by all those who opposed Iran’s nuclear program. They have no qualms at all about supplying all arrays of conventional weapons to every country in the region but their stance on nuclear issues is a shame considering that most of them – including Israel have nuclear arsenals of their own. Most of the conflict in this region in the past many decades has not been fueled by nuclear arms but with conventional weapons. As long as billions keep on being spent on weapons, there will never be peace. Surely, we can be sane and spend all of this on educating local populations and providing them with sustainable employment opportunities.
I agree it’s all very sad and now what are Saudi and Qatar doing with those weapons? Bombing and massacring Yemenis in a war the world has forgotten.
Win win for the USA. You get agreement on nukes with Iran and then you sell defensive arms to their neighbours. Vested interests? No……..
Sure is.
I don’t understand. Is it vested interest for the US to maintain peace in the Middle East? Is that the reason why they keep pushing for a nuclear accord with Iran, just so they can sell defense capabilities to its Middle East partners?
USA is Qatar in a different universe. They both taking the world for a ride. It is where power and money meet and greet.
from human perspective, there are many better way to spend 100 billion than to invest in useless junk and support military lobby and arm race
actually anything would be better than this way it is spent now
you have a gun, one day someone will die from it
100 billion for arms, but can’t find 20,000QAR for animal shelter…
Very true and sad. If I were Qatari, I would really be so ashamed.
It is sad how humans and animals are treated when deals in BILLIONS for things that are not needed are being conducted.