The Foreign Service Journal, June 2007

dollars on advanced weapons platforms. The New York Times reported that the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia brokered deals that would raise their total defense expenditures in 2007 to nearly $60 bil- lion, dwarfing Iran’s defense budget. In March, the Boston Globe reported that the State Department and Pentagon were pressing for congres- sional approval for further increases in arms sales to Arab countries that have prickly relations with Tehran. One former Arab official told the Financial Times that the Arabs are now looking at themselves and saying they have to deal with their own problems. Iran is at or near the top of the list of those problems. Although recent reports indicate that Israel is pressuring the administration to back away from arms sales to the Gulf states, Washington should ignore such pressure. Fostering balance in the Persian Gulf is sound policy. Israel, the one existing (but undeclared) nuclear power in the Middle East, appears to be ramping up efforts to develop a failsafe second-strike capability. This effort is prudent and justified, but Israel would have a viable land-based second-strike capability even if a potential adversary were to launch an extremely high number of nuclear strikes first. The country is current- ly thought to possess roughly 200 nuclear weapons, dis- persed throughout its (admittedly small) territory. Given that Israel reportedly possesses both nuclear- equipped Jericho-2 missiles in hardened silos and sub- marines armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles (both of which are extremely difficult to destroy, even with highly accurate weapons), it is clear that no conceivable Iranian first strike in the foreseeable future would destroy Israel’s retaliatory capability. Futhermore, an Israeli second strike would have a devastating effect on Iran, given that roughly two-thirds of its population is located in urban centers. It is difficult to believe that the Iranian leadership would bring about the destruction of its own country so that Sunni states like Saudi Arabia could claim the man- tle of a victorious post-Israel Islam. F O C U S J U N E 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 39