US Set for $60 Billion Saudi Arms Sale

Officials Cite 'Iran Threat' in Record Deal

by Jason Ditz, September 13, 2010

The Obama Administration is said to be close to announcing the largest weapons deal in American history, with some $60 billion in weapons including 84 new F-15s being sold to Saudi Arabia along with massive amounts of parts of “long-term logistics support.”

Officially this sale is about giving Saudi Arabia’s enormous military a further leg up on Iran, though why this is the case is never stated, as the two nations don’t border one another and while they aren’t on the best of terms they don’t appear to be on the brink of war either.

But a side effect of this sale will be to ratchet up requests for more military aid to Israel, as official US policy has been to ensure that the Israeli military is stronger than any of the Arab nations in the Middle East.

This will amount to more sales for the US weapons industry, which the Obama Administration has vowed to grow. US arms exports are already the largest on the planet by far, and with major new contracts to Saudi Arabia and Iraq this margin seems bound to increase going forward.

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