Boost in US arms sales meant to placate Arab states: Ex-Pentagon official
The impending approval of nearly $40 billion in US foreign military sales in the 2016 fiscal year is actually aimed at calming the United States’ Arab allies in the Middle East, says a former Pentagon official.
"We're tracking toward $40 billion. We're tracking toward our forecast," US Navy Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Reuters at the Farnborough International Airshow.
In an interview with Press TV on Wednesday, Michael Maloof called the move “another outrageous effort by the Obama administration” further, outlining the US government’s true motives, including one to “placate” Washington’s Arab allies in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia.
President Barack Obama is “trying to placate the [Persian] Gulf Arab countries who have gone off on their own tangents in Syria and elsewhere and undertaken their own independent foreign policies since they no longer really trust the US for security,” according to the analyst.
Apart from that, Maloof noted, the move is “meant to assist the Department of Defense and defense contractors such as Lockheed to stay in the market.”
He also touched upon 40 separate initiatives by Rixey to streamline the foreign arms sales approval process, which has irked Washington’s Arab allies due to delay it causes in delivery, as authorization is needed from the US State Department, Pentagon, and White House.
“Congress is going to have to approve it and if it’s going to Arab countries, they could become problematic,” Maloof said. “It’s going to create political issues with respect to Congress because of concerns that a lot of the weapons could get into the hands of ISIL” or other Takfiri terrorist groups active in the region.
The former defense official voiced regret that Washington was pursuing expansion in arms deal while suffering continued in parts of the Middle East due to Washington’s foreign policies.
“It’s unfortunate that this is the only kind of foreign policy that we conduct these days,” said the Washington-based analyst. “We should be helping with infrastructure reconstruction… particularly in Syria.”
The arms deal expansion, instead, is “the best” the US can do, Maloof said, calling it “pathetic.”
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