Speaking of Munich, and Czechoslovakia ..Report calls on U.S. to revoke policy presuming Arab threat to Israel

WASHINGTON Gertz -- A new report by two senior U.S. military officers called for a significant revision of Washington's policy to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge in the region. The report argued that Arab countries, including Syria, no longer threaten the Jewish state.

"With the anachronistic strategic bifurcation of the Middle East into Israel and a monolithic group of Arab states no longer analytically useful -- if it ever was -- traditional assumptions regarding QME [qualitative military edge] no longer hold true," the report by the Washington Institute said.

Titled "U.S. Foreign Policy and Israel's Qualitative Military Edge: The Need for a Common Vision," the report argued that Arab states were prepared to form an alliance against Iran.

Some of the teachings from those VERY Arab states tells me that there is no way that they would make an alliance with the USA against Iran, and especially the JEWS. They may be ready to form an alliance against the Shia's ALONE, but that would be totally out of character.Why would they when WE (in the stead of our more needy European friends, who use vastly more mid-east oil, and have vastly less projection capabilities) will need to protect that oil NO MATTER WHAT? What do these guys base this opinion on?

Briere and Wunderle, both lieutenant colonels in the Joint Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, said their report did not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. military or government, the latter of which seeks to sell $20 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states.

The authors asserted that Israel's nuclear arsenal has dissipated the strategic significance of U.S. arms sales to Arab allies.

Apples and oranges. Israeli use of nuclear weapons means the end of the world as we know it. Irradiated oil fields, hundreds of millions dead. Disease. Bodies. That kind of threat does not deter Syria, which will use only conventional weapons plus, and depend on the continuous pressure of demographic weight to eventually make the Israeli experiment fail. How long was it from the 1st Crusade to the fall of the last Templar stronghold?

They said many Middle East countries "find themselves strategically aligned in part with Israel's in their desire to contain and deter an increasingly aggressive" Iran.

"The sale of sophisticated conventional weaponry to the Arab states no longer necessarily implies a corresponding reduction in Israel's QME," the report, believed to be the first released by U.S. military officers on the topic, said.

The sale of qualitatively equal technical weapons to anything the Israeli's have to the same people who have tried to wipe out the jews in the levant since 1919 does not diminish the qualitative edge they have, nor does it increase their peril. Is that the argument?

"Instead, such a sale is a double-edged sword, reducing Israel's QME to the extent such Arab states continue to represent Israeli adversaries, but at the same time effectively increasing Israel's QME by improving the military capability of states aligned with it in their desire to deter Iranian threats and aggression."

That is a monumentally arrogant assumption to justify sales of weapons to oil owners. When have these nations EVER joined together and gone to war on their own? Even if they broke history's lessons and DID so, how would their populations hold up as Al Jazeera et al are asking why they are in league with the zionists against brothers?

The report called on Israel to drop any objection to U.S. arms sales as part of a commitment by Washington to support the maintenance of the qualitative military edge of the Jewish state.

These guys can convince themselves of anything.

Briere and Wunderle said U.S. exports to such countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries were vital for American foreign policy as well as its defense industry.

$$ ??

"Israel must cease its legitimate but misguided opposition to U.S. government weapons sales to its Arab Gulf allies," the report said. "Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. The government of Israel needs to acknowledge that the United States and Israel will require well-armed Arab allies in confronting and containing the Iranian regime."

Let's flip this around and imagine it's 1980. How would americans be thinking if Israel asked us to understand why they were selling their most advanced weapons to the Warsaw Pact because it satisfied a more local threat reduction, and helped their defense industry?

Instead, the report offered a new definition of QME that examines Arab threat scenarios, prospects of regime change as well as Israeli military capabilities. Briere and Wunderle argued that QME must consider U.S. and Israeli foreign policy interests as well as regional weapons, manpower, training, leadership, and tactical capability.

"The government of Israel favors an expansive definition of QME-related threats, whereas the United States advocates an interpretation based upon realistic short- to mid-term threats," the report said. "These differing views of QME create disagreements between Israel and the United States on some arms sales to the Middle East."

The report was released amid an examination by Congress of the proposed U.S. sale of the Joint Direct Attack Munition to Saudi Arabia. Many House members have expressed concern that JDAM, which converts general purpose bombs into precision-guided munitions, would pose a threat to Israel as well as U.S. forces in the Middle East.

"If another country -- likely Russia -- replaces the United States as the principal source of military hardware and training, the current levels of access and influence afforded to it would be lost," the report said. "The United States is far more likely to limit weapons sales to less capable export variants or smaller quantities than other exporting nations."