U.S.’s
decision to join a group of European and Arab countries in recognizing the legitimacy
of Syrian opposition has reopened the issue of whether Washington should also
lift the arms embargo and provide lethal support to the Syrian opposition.
France has been supporting this idea for a while and Qatar is already providing
some weapons to the rebels. However, Victoria Nuland, State Department
Spokesperson, has reiterated quite a few times that the U.S. is not going to go
beyond non-lethal support. Furthermore, State Department continues to isolate
radicals among the opposition – jihadist Al-Nusra Front has been added to the blacklist
of foreign terror organizations linked to Al-Qaeda and the Treasury has imposed
sanctions against their leaders. It is obvious that the State Department is
being extra cautious and is trying to learn from the Libyan
experience.
According to unspecified sources, during the height of Libyan rebellion U.S.
has approved a secret arms transfer through Qatar to Libyan rebels, some of
which, according to counterterrorism agencies, ended up in the hands of radical
groups. These allegations led several retired military and intelligence
officials to speculate that there could have been some links between those
secretly transferred weapons and the terrorist attack in Benghazi.
Administration’s prudence
definitely deserves laudation. But the question is how lasting and foresighted
this vigilance is. It is not yet clear how long will White House resist the
temptation of providing arms to the opposition. And even if it will manage to
resist till the end, direct arms transfer is not the only way American arms can
reach the rebels. Gulf region is saturated by American weapons, as Washington
is obviously not as cautious of signing arms deals worth billions of dollars
with various Gulf countries.
Despite the world economic
crisis, global arms sales almost doubled last year and
U.S.’s share in 2011 increased to almost 80% of the market. Out of $85.3
billion of global annual trade budget, U.S. received $66.3 billion. Russia
remains the second biggest arms provider on the global market, but her share has
reduced from 24% in 2010 to only 6% in 2011. Most of these arms went to the
developing world. The biggest importer of U.S. arms is Saudi Arabia. It purchased
almost half of all U.S.’s arms exports in 2011. Other major importers in the
region are the UAE, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and of course Israel. Most of
the arms sold to these countries are described as defensive, aimed at increasing
Gulf countries’ defensive capabilities against Iran. But besides the
antimissile batteries and missile defense systems, these countries are also
procuring vast numbers of F-15 and F-16 fighters, various ammunitions, missiles,
and other conventional weapons, which can easily end up in the hands of all groups
of Syrian rebels, even if the U.S. is not intending to support them directly. And this is only the unclassified part of the
sales. Foreign countries can acquire American-produced arms through several
schemes – Foreign Military Sales (FMS), Direct Commercial Sales (DCS), leases
of equipment, transfer of excess defense articles (EDA), and emergency
draw-downs of weaponry. In addition to sales, arms are being transferred as a
part of the foreign assistance. Almost 12% of total U.S. foreign aid is spent
on military. The largest of military assistance programs are Foreign Military
Financing, which has been providing funds to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan for
purchasing American weapons and in exchange, maintaining peace with each other,
International Military Education and Training program, and Counter-drug Aid. The
biggest chunks of the arms sales are channeled through the FMS. It includes all
inter-governmental deals and is absolutely transparent if the deal is worth
more than $14 million. It is administered by Pentagon. DCS however is quicker,
sometimes even cheaper route and goes through less governmental scrutiny than
FMS. Most of the information about the types and quantities traded are easily
classified as “confidential business information.”
Senator Richard Lugar has criticized
Obama Administration for limiting Congressional engagement in foreign arms
trade to the very formal procedures. Previous administrations have engaged
Congressional leaders in informal discussions of the terms and conditions of
all major deals prior to presenting the final agreement for formal
Congressional approval. This practice, according to Sen. Lugar, allowed for
much deeper scrutiny of the impact of each deal on U.S.’s foreign policy goals
in a given country. One of the consequences of the late, rather unilateral decisions,
he argues, has been Government Accountability Office’s findings that there are
some inconsistencies between the arms sales to the Gulf States and the U.S.
foreign policy goals, as defined by the Pentagon and State Department.
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