Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 26, 1991 TAG: 9103260479
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The United States is asking the U.S. Export-Import Bank to float a big new line of credit to enable cash-short nations to buy American weapons. Thus has the arms selling spree resumed after barely a pause for the war against Iraq.
There is apparently, in the Bush administration, no sense of deja vu. The White House is not recalling that Iraq became a menace in part because of a steady flow of Western arms and technical assistance. The president seems not to have learned that an arms race in the Middle East and prospects for stability are fundamentally at odds.
Like dunces in a tragedy, we rush to reopen the weapons bazaar. Indeed, the administration plans to sell a whopping $18 billion in arms to the Middle East in the coming year.
And why not? U.S. arms are the hot merchandise this year. Who'd want to buy old Russian tanks after their performance in the Gulf war? With Pentagon budgets declining, arms manufacturers are pressing Washington to allow them to sell more overseas.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has even resorted to the argument that weapons sales to allies reduce the need for American troop involvement.
Well, things don't always work out that way, do they?
Anyone willing to bet that there'll be no more changing of sides - that the configuration of allies and antagonists in the Mideast will still be the same five or 10 years from now?
Anyone willing to bet that arms sales approved to achieve a delicate balance of power won't eventually come back to haunt those who sold the arms?
The tragedy is that this moment, right after the war, is propitious for restraining arms sales. Yet, instead of trying to negotiate new constraints, the United States is rushing to fill orders.
The cycle of war is renewed.
by CNB